


i stop somewhere waiting for you

by anderfels



Series: what stranger miracles [7]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bad Flirting, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Blood, Blood and Gore, Bodily Fluids, Bodily Functions, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Comfort, Dancing, Derogatory Language, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Disability, Dreams and Nightmares, Drinking, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eye Trauma, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gore, Gun Violence, Gunshot Wounds, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Horses, Humiliation, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Illnesses, Imprisonment, Infection, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kidnapping, Kissing, Lies, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Manipulation, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Touching, Panic Attacks, Party, Period Typical Bigotry, Period-Typical Racism, Physical Abuse, Physical Disability, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racist Language, Rated For Violence, Recovery, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Rough Kissing, Secret Relationship, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Semi-Public Sex, Serious Injuries, Siblings, Singing, Sleeping Together, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Suffering, Swearing, Talking, Threats of Violence, Torture, Touch-Starved, Touching, Trauma, Triggers, Urination, Verbal Humiliation, Violence, Vomiting, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, it's pretty canon typical but i want to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-02-29 13:16:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 103,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18779038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anderfels/pseuds/anderfels
Summary: Arthur shifts his aim. Hovers on Colm’s haggard face, slightly out of focus due to the sheer distance. And Colm - somehow - glances up to his right. Directly at the glint of the rifle scope.For a split second, Arthur looks him in the eye.He flinches back. Footsteps clatter behind him, skidding on the rock. He turns, and the butt of a rifle smashes into his head.Set during and after 'Blessed Are The Peacemakers' in Chapter 3, a bid to parley with the O'Driscolls goes disastrously wrong. Charles takes it upon himself to find Arthur and bring him home before he succumbs to days of torture and imprisonment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> whew, hello again if anyone's still reading! it's been a lot of work, and i've been writing this nearly every day since the end of february, but still this monster isn't quite finished just yet. so i've decided to split it into two parts just to get something up and posted before the 3 of u still here die of boredom. this is a beast of a fic, but it's the one i really wanted to get written before i even started this series, so i hope it's worth the wait.
> 
> this story came about because i refuse to believe arthur could have been kidnapped without anyone noticing, and that p much nobody would care about it whatsoever. i wanted to create a reasonable (if you believe dutch is reasonable) explanation for this whole section in game, and as always, try to expand upon what we see in a (hopefully) realistic way with regard to the developing relationship between charles and arthur. so this is kinda...my version of events!
> 
> the subject matter here is therefore, pretty heavy. this fic concerns arthur's kidnap and extended periods of torture while imprisoned, his devastating shoulder wound, his sepsis, and then some of the difficult aspects of his recovery as it begins, with regard to his mental health as well as physical. the second part will focus on the weeks that come after, and the beginning of his 'recovery'.  
> so, in this first part, there's a lot of violence and injury, the humiliation the o'driscolls put him through, the physical effects of imprisonment, of suspension torture, and of infection. i've tagged everything i can think of right now, but please do be aware. it's not an easy read, but it's not meant to be, so i hope the unsavoury parts don't come across as gratuitous or 'too much'.
> 
> anyways, enough rambling! big thank you to the lovely @Danudaine on twitter, who gave this part a read before i posted it! and thank you for all of the comments and kudos, for reading my nonsense, for being patient, and i hope this piece satisfies while i keep working on the rest! ♥

_Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,_

_Missing me one place search another,_

_I stop somewhere waiting for you._

 

Summer swells. The season soars towards its height in days that stretch like pulling taffy, brief nights ushered into the moonlit corners of dusk by the ever-confident sun, lounging across Lemoyne like an overfed cat. There hasn’t been rain for weeks, but the lowland plains still seep with run-off from the Heartlands, lush with verdant vibrant life, congregating around the precious pockets of water, where the dry grass is still green. Birds have flocked in numbers, feasting on the living land, the bees that hurry through the flower meadows, vying with the butterflies for nectar and pollen, busy in the rising heat.

Clemens Point bustles, too. One bank robbery, and a daring gallop out of Valentine for the second time in barely a month, scattering lawmen through the dry prairie amongst the antelope and mustang herds. It’s a risk, and Arthur knows it, yet he rides back into Scarlett Meadows with the same elated grin as when they’d raced to catch the bison, so long and many miles ago, breathless with adrenaline and camaraderie, worn proudly on his chest like medals. Money flows from the cracked safes. Abundant and precious.

Not enough, says Dutch. 

Molly withers with his neglect, and it comes to shouting more often than not, a deliberately ignored feature of the camp’s quiet mornings, conspicuous as a blueberry in a pan of milk. Despite the tension, Dutch doesn’t seem concerned. He lazes as a basking lizard, lips stretched around his cigar, and when he rises it’s to tell them all that there’s not enough money to get away. Not enough food, not enough time. Not enough, never enough.

Within the day, Arthur’s smile is gone. Forgotten as he tells Karen that he’s seen too many people die to think of robbing as fun anymore. She visibly deflates, and Arthur tries not to take her disappointment in him to heart.

A stagecoach comes next, a tale Arthur enjoys retelling to Charles, if only to prove his earlier statement that Trelawny is but a man, just like the rest of them. A crook in pinstripes. And a good one at that, fleecing a plush primadonna of her worldly goods in as much time as it takes Arthur to pronounce the Italian opera she’s supposedly singing from.

The impression he does of her makes Charles laugh hard enough to spill his coffee, and despite Dutch’s badgering, Arthur seems happier. With some distance between them and the ruling families of Rhodes, they all feel a little more content.

It’s a few days since their hunting trip. Arthur dresses, eats leftover cornbread with his coffee as he grooms Magpie for the day, and Taima too, since Charles is under strict orders (from Arthur) to sleep late. Rare for him, but he had the night’s guard duty, and Arthur has seen him working on a mere two hours’ sleep far too many times, insisting he take the morning off to catch up. The amount Charles does, mostly completely taken for granted, hasn’t yet ceased to amaze him.

Blessedly free of Molly and Dutch circling each other like alley cats, the morning is a quiet one, and he greets Cain on his way from the horses, wondering if perhaps Hosea would humour him with a round of dominoes, to pass the time before whatever needs his attention presents itself. 

Heading back to his wagon first, he drinks the last of his coffee, and tips his hat at Dutch, sitting just outside his tent, head down. “Mornin’, Dut-”

Micah looks up, not Dutch at all, and Arthur nearly inhales his mouthful, spitting lukewarm coffee down his chin in a dribbling spurt. 

“Careful, cowpoke,” Micah warns, stroking the revolver in his hand with a rag, voice bored as he watches Arthur splutter, like one of those vaguely terrifying children who delights in pulling the wings off flies. “Wouldn’t want you to _choke_. Heard you’re prone to it.”

“F-Fuck off,” Arthur spits, wiping his mouth. What’s he doing sitting outside Dutch’s tent like he’s spent the night in it?

“Or maybe it’s a thrill for you, huh Morgan? Losin’ control like that? That what gets you off?”

His grin is like a ravine, holey and jagged, and Arthur is tempted to throttle him himself, see how much he likes joking then. “What you _want_?”

“Testy feller, ain’tcha,” Micah says, tipping his gun up towards his lips and blowing some invisible gunpowder from the muzzle, still smiling like an alligator. 

A rumbling chuckle, and he holds both hands up in surrender, leering at the look on Arthur’s face, revolver catching the light just as his yellowed teeth do. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called,” he says, and Arthur’s already not paying attention to whatever he’s rambling on about, gaze caught by Molly as she stalks past behind him, dress whipping up the dust from the dry earth.

“Hey- Molly?” he asks, spinning on his heel, replacing his coffee cup in his satchel. “Where’s Dutch?”

She brushes past him, waving her hand in dismissal by way of answering, Micah’s snickering in the background.

“Well-” he says. Arthur peers around Dutch’s tent, and then cranes his neck to see past the slightly open canvas flaps, hoping against hope he doesn’t see Dutch inside half-dressed, waiting for Micah to come back to bed. 

Jesus Christ.

“-However it goes.”

“I ain’t sure that line of thought serves you or me very well,” Arthur snaps, finally giving Micah the attention he’s grubbing for.

“That’s because, cowpoke,” Micah says, face turned up to him, puckered and jowly like a bulldog. “You are a man of profoundly limited intelligence.”

Every expression Micah has in his facial catalogue seems to drip somehow, like over-buttered bread, greasy and shiny, opening up beneath his moustache like a gold-toothed bear trap. 

Arthur just sighs, habitual. “No doubt.”

“While you and the old man and Dutch have been runnin’ around, digging us ever deeper into shit-”

“ _Your_ shit. This two-timing con was your dumbass idea-”

“Old Mr Pearson,” Micah continues, eyes unblinking. “Might’ve gone and lightened the load a little. _Pearson_!”

Sighing again, Arthur looks across the camp to find Pearson, already heading their way, wiping his hands on the apron tucked under the overhang of his belly. “Ain’t you curious?” Micah asks, eyes flicking back up to Arthur, watching.

“I guess…”

“Gentlemen!”

Dutch’s voice rings out.

Striding towards them from the hitching posts, he makes his way into the camp, the brocade on his waistcoat catching the light. Despite the heat, he’s still dressed up like a prize-winning rooster at the county fair, buttons rubbed until they shine, a handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket as a neatly folded flag. Micah stands to greet him as Pearson blusters over, sweat dark across his shirt.

“Perfect timing, Dutch! You tell him what we was discussin’, fat man,” Micah says, eager even as Dutch marches past all of them, intending to get to his tent without interruption.

“It’s peace, Dutch,” Pearson says, looking to Arthur, then to Micah, then to Dutch’s back. “The O’Driscolls. I mean- I think there’s a way.”

“What on Earth are you blathering about?”

Dutch ducks into his tent, pulling the canvas back, and again Pearson looks to Micah for help. “Get the words out properly, fat man,” Micah chides, and Pearson either doesn’t notice the patronising ooze in his voice, or elects to ignore it.

“I met a couple of them O’Driscoll boys on the road into town.” Hesitating, Pearson lingers at the edge of Dutch’s tent, unwilling to cross the threshold as Dutch busies himself inside, taking his revolver out of its holster to inspect the sights, filling his time with whatever mundanity needed to rid his space of the three of them. “Things were about to get ugly, but uh… Well, you know how I am in a fight, huh,” Pearson chirps, gleeful, and finally Dutch looks back at him, blankly watching as Pearson mimes aforementioned fighting prowess, jabbing at the air and skirting an unseen foe with a paring knife from his apron.

“Like a cornered tiger!” he quips, hopping between each foot to parry imaginary blows, huffing a weak dishwater smile back at Arthur, who barely manages a grimace in return. 

After a long, awkward second, Pearson puts the knife away. “Anyway…”

Satisfied with his gun, Dutch continues to bustle about the tent, locating a box tucked on top of a small chest of drawers, hidden behind a hanging rug, ornately flowered like the one in Trelawny’s shack had been, silk and craftsmanship claiming to be imported from Outer Mongolia or some such nonsense. It was probably made in Arizona. He takes out a cigar, thicker than two of Arthur’s fingers and twice as long, clipping the end before placing it between his teeth to light.

“Somehow, it didn’t,” Pearson continues, turning back to Dutch, hoping to reel in his attention again. “But, well, we got to talking, and they suggested a parley! To end things.”

Brow creasing, Dutch simply looks at him. His cigar smoulders. “Like… Like gentlemen,” Pearson mumbles, voice trailing, tumbling over on itself. 

“Gentlemen?” Dutch echoes, eyes narrowing to mere slits. “Colm O’Driscoll?!”

Rounding on a cowering Pearson, Dutch all but shoves him from his tent, gesturing with the quick jerking movements of the incredibly angry. He looks from a nonplussed Arthur to Micah, and then to Pearson again, looming at his full height, shoulders taut. “Have you lost your _damn_ minds?!”

Voice placating, Micah speaks first, palms up as if trying to calm a spooked horse. “Now, you’re always tellin’ us, Dutch,” he lilts, simpering, a panther coaxing a rabbit out from its burrow with the promise to admire the rabbit’s soft coat, and definitely absolutely unequivocally not to eat him. “Do what has to be done, but don’t fight wars ain’t worth fightin’.”

“They want a parley?” 

Hosea’s voice calls from the dominoes table where he’s reading the newspaper, and apparently listening to every word. “It’s a trap.”

“Well of course, it’s _probably_ a trap!” Micah snaps, sarcasm in his shaking head as he rounds back to Dutch, hands out like he’s calling the faithful to prayer. “But what’ve we got to lose finding out?”

It’s bullshit, clearly, but Arthur can’t work out Micah’s angle. He watches from the sidelines of whatever pantomime he’s been unwillingly roped into, thumbs in his belt, frowning as he looks from Micah to Pearson, to Dutch, to Hosea. If it was anyone _but_ Micah, he’d have to agree. Their feud with the O’Driscolls is about as old as his tenure in the gang, and he’d like to think, much less useful. Lying low is difficult enough without the perpetual harassment of Colm’s boys on top of everything else they’re trying to outrun. It’s one more wasp’s nest they don’t need to be poking.

But Micah… What game is he playing? Despite the good sense his argument makes, Arthur can’t help but feel uneasy that it’s him that’s making it. Good sense and Micah don’t go together.

Besides, there’s always a lot left to lose. 

“We could get shot,” he offers, and shrugs a shoulder.

“We ain’t gettin’ shot, ‘cause you’ll be protectin’ us, cowpoke,” Micah says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and steps into Arthur’s space to gingerly touch his arm, clasping his bicep with over-emphasised friendliness. Play-acting for the crowd.

Setting his teeth, Arthur stands up straight, and Micah backs off, both hands held palm-up. “If it’s a trap, you shoot the lotta them. If it ain’t a trap, that _slim_ chance-”

“I don’t see the point in any of this,” Dutch snaps, brushing past them all again, drawing on his cigar as he heads over to Hosea’s table.

“Surely, it’s a chance we gotta take,” Micah says, following after him, a puppy trotting at his master’s heels.

Dutch stops, and hunches where Hosea has his newspaper, hands flat on the table for a moment, enjoying the pause. They all look to him, even Hosea, discarding his reading to trace the lines of Dutch’s face, the furl of his brow.

“I killed Colm’s brother,” he says finally, pushing off to stand before the four of them, gathered around the table in a loose crowd. “Long time ago.” Silent, his mouth opens, then shuts again, cigar held in limbo between his side and his lips. “Then he…”

The sun gathers in the brim of Dutch’s hat, glowing along the lines of his profile. He stares for a long second, caught in a memory in the middle distance, chin tipped slightly down to his chest before he looks up. “Then he killed…” A sigh, heavy, eyes following some unseen trail of thought, darting. “A woman I loved dear.”

Silence reigns for a moment, Pearson shuffling uncomfortably beside Arthur, only Micah daring to break the wordless barrier, stepping forward to the table. “As you say,” he says, voice low, rasping noiselessly like leaves against a branch. “It’s a long time ago, Dutch.”

Again, if it wasn’t Micah, Arthur might describe it as gentle. As it is, he only feels vaguely disturbed, fur rubbed in the wrong direction, watching Dutch slink through a rotoscope of emotions - pain, anger, annoyance, regret, indifference - settling finally in acceptance, jaw clenched tight. He nods, head staying down in a dangerous bow, an animal on the prowl, and finally looks at Micah having made his decision. “Let’s go. You and me, with Arthur protecting us. No one else.”

“What about me?” Pearson asks, and Arthur sighs in sympathy as he weakly claps his shoulder. 

“This ain’t the time for tigers, my friend,” Dutch quips, barely bothering to hide his amusement as he throws away his half-smoked cigar. 

He touches Hosea’s back as he passes, heading out towards the grazing geldings, purpose renewed in every stride. “Arthur, ready up, we’re headin’ out.”

Another sigh, and Arthur follows after them, collecting Magpie’s saddle on the way, hoisting it up to rest on his hip as he walks towards the group of mares. “Fine,” he mumbles, to no one but himself, planting his hat from where it rests on the saddle horn firmly on his head. How does he always manage to get himself stuck into the most ridiculous of things.

Anxiety nags at him. Mostly he ignores it, focusing on the pieces of Magpie’s bridle, gently helping her ears through the browband with his right hand as his left cups the bit into her mouth, set in place behind her teeth. She chews it willingly, tail swishing up over her flanks to shoo the summer flies. A reassuring routine, slipping leather straps through the buckle keepers, crossing her reins over her crest, adjusting his repeater in the saddle holster, the rifle sheathed in the cinch.

Baylock and The Count are pawing the red ground towards the treeline before long, the Arabian turning fidgeting circles while they wait for Arthur. He catches Dutch’s deliberately raised voice, “He’s always loved his horses far more than any one of us!” and waves a dismissive hand in reply, checking Magpie’s saddlebags are properly secured, the water canteen on her right shoulder, the lasso looped on her left. He doesn’t notice he’s being watched from the hitching post.

“Hey,” Charles says, voice still low with lost sleep, and Arthur’s attention jumps to him, settling on his face with the same warm comfort as sinking into a plush armchair after a hard day of work. Somehow, Charles never looks tired. Some miracle of perfect genetics, it must be, whereas when Arthur gets less sleep than usual, by his own admission he looks like a badly reheated corpse.

But Charles is just as handsome as he always is, grey-green undershirt clinging across his chest like grass to the earth, rolling with the contours of his muscle like deep hills. “You good?” he asks, and Arthur has to smile despite himself, warm beneath his breastbone.

“Mm,” he hums, which is as effective as if he’d said no, leading Magpie over to where Charles is standing next to Taima, affectionately rubbing her neck. “You was s’posed to be sleepin’ in.”

“I did, it’s nearly 8,” Charles says, greeting Magpie, letting her nudge her nose into his palm, whiskers tickling his fingers. “Want me in bed longer than that, you’ll have to persuade me.”

Arthur snickers, grateful for the humour. It’s soothing somehow, a small brush of normality calming his nerves, melting away with Charles’ easy flirting. “Reckon I’d enjoy that,” he says, sly smile creeping across his lips. 

“Arthur!” Dutch yells from across the clearing, startling a few chickens pecking about Sadie’s feet as they wait for their feed. “You’re wasting daylight!” 

A sigh and Arthur reluctantly looks away from Charles. “So...you headin’ out?” Charles asks, curiosity turning away from the riders waiting by the trees and trying to catch his eyes again.

“Mm. Whatever this shit is, some harebrained scheme of Micah’s, as usual… Much rather be persuadin’ you back into bed.” 

The smile returns, but only for a second, ghostlike in how it haunts Arthur’s face, as if he can’t quite catch hold of it firmly enough to feel the contentedness that preceded it. He gestures to where Dutch and Micah are waiting. “Micah reckons Colm O’Driscoll wants to offer some kinda...parley, I don’t know. S’a trap, most likely.”

Charles is frowning when Arthur looks back to him, brow heavy. “I’d rather you were persuading me back into bed, too.” His gaze drops to Arthur’s lips, laden with silent meaning, and Arthur subconsciously wets them with his tongue, still tasting the bitter tang of his morning coffee, wanting nothing but to kiss him. Damn the rest of them, damn Dutch, damn anything that would stand in his way.

“Goddamnit,” Arthur hisses, and sighs once more, looking away from Charles and scuffing his boot hard into a tuft of grass, kicking up a wedge of earth. 

“Hey,” Charles says, soft. Starting forward, his fingers brush Arthur’s for just a second before he can retreat, not enough, but all he feels he can afford to offer. “You’ll be back later.”

“Yeah,” Arthur murmurs. “Yeah. I just- I-” 

He rubs his clean-shaven chin, nails catching on old acne scars, blemishes usually hidden beneath perpetually scruffy stubble. Whatever he wants to say isn’t entirely clear even to him, stoppered in his throat no matter how he tries to pull words through the knot of anxiety. He wants to...tell Charles how much he wishes things were different. Tell him how much he enjoys his company, and isn’t joking when he flirts with him. That he dreams of more than kisses, even though that alone is difficult enough to find the space for, and something he would happily spend the rest of his life fighting for the privilege to do. Things that seem too complex for an early morning. Too important for his crude tongue. “I’unno. Doesn’t matter. I uh...I’ll catch you later. I can bore you with it then.”

“Listening to you is never boring,” Charles says softly, with his silk smile. “Be careful.”

An easy chuckle, and Arthur tips his hat slightly, adjusting it on his head. “I’m always careful,” he says, and gives his two-fingered salute as he leads Magpie away, mounting up to ride out on Dutch’s tail. “Catch you later.”

“Count on it,” Charles replies, mimicking the gesture as he watches them go.

“Finally,” Dutch says, and The Count skips up to trot behind Baylock, philodendrons brushing his hooves as they ride through the undergrowth. He’s a finicky horse, The Count, tossing his head impatiently, ears flicked back towards Magpie as she slots tentatively behind him, unused to riding together. Without the familiar presence of Taima to boost her confidence, Magpie keeps a length away from the geldings, and Arthur silently strokes her neck, rolling the kinks from his own shoulders to settle for the long ride.

They wind through Scarlett Meadows, a monochrome parade trailing north through the rich fields, greens and browns, patchwork scraps of grass and dirt, tiled between the forests. The road takes them all the way to Dewberry Creek, a dry strip of bare skin beneath the covering land of the plains, like the naked midriff of a giant. There’s no water to be found in the old riverbed, nothing but dust and bleached rock. Even the wildlife has moved on, the crag picked clean until rain comes, and washes colour back into the banks, stirring the life slumbering away from the summer heat.

“You know,” Dutch says, as they cross the railroad tracks near the state border with New Hanover, as mid-morning drifts in, bringing pale clouds blown in from the lake. “I been fighting Colm for so long now, I can barely remember a time when it was different.”

“You’re still fightin’ him now,” Arthur says gruffly from behind. “Make no mistake of that-”

“Here he goes, Doubtin’ Thomas.”

Micah twists in his saddle, gesturing with his reins to the two riders behind him, the roll of his eyes audible in his voice. “Is there any plan you ain’t sour on?”

Turning too, Dutch looks back at him with pointed agreement, and Arthur sighs, shaking his head. “I’unno,” he admits, defeated. “Maybe you’re right, I- I’m just nervous. I don’t wanna waste more lives needlessly.”

“I ain’t costin’ lives here,” Micah says, facing forward again, raising his voice to be heard over the steady drum of hooves. “I’m savin’ ‘em! What’d you say, Dutch, we got Pinkertons after us-”

“‘Cause of Blackwater,” Arthur mutters.

“Plus _Leviticus Cornwall_ , and his private army.”

“‘Cause of the train Dutch robbed off of Colm-”

“Then, who knows when this local hillbilly double cross’ll come to a head, hm?”

“Which you was itchin’ to wet your dick with, Micah!”

“Arthur!”

“I’m just sayin’! Ain’t me who was thinkin’ any of this was a good idea.”

Dutch scoffs, loud enough to make Arthur scowl, pouting like a scolded child. “Your hindsight is perfect as always, my friend,” he says, sarcastic, and Micah cuts Arthur off before he can retort.

“Can we really afford to be fighting on all these fronts?” he says, turning back to both of them. “All this shit, _and_ O’Driscoll?”

“There is wisdom in that,” Dutch says, deepening the scowl on Arthur’s face.

He waves his hand at the clouding midges as they cross to the north bank of the creek, horses kicking up dust in single file, taking out his discomfort on the tiny flies. They flank the dead river at the base of the cliff above, a moat around a great grassy castle, following its path before looping back on themselves to cut up to higher ground, brush thinning out as they progress further towards the plains. “I just- Like I said, I’m...nervous,” Arthur says eventually, and subconsciously rubs Magpie’s crest, reassuring himself as much as her.

“You ain’t even gonna be the one in danger,” Micah says, managing not to sound completely patronising. A grand feat for him. “We’ll get on over there, find you a nice little perch. You got a scoped rifle?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So me an’ Dutch walk right into the lion’s den, with you coverin’ us.”

“Okay, okay, just-” Arthur shakes his head. “Just keep calm. Unless I give you reason not to.”

“Oh we’ll be fine,” Dutch says, chuckling to himself. “We’ve got you.”

“I shall try my best.”

“Oh my dear and trusted friend,” Dutch says, curling his fingers in the air beside him with a flourish. “With you watching over me, I would walk into Hell itself.”

Another soft sigh and Arthur swallows around a pang of guilt, hot on the back of his neck and not just from the sun. Maybe Micah’s right. Maybe he truly is just becoming doubtful in his old age, being so frequently reminded of his own mortality, his lack of much to be proud of in life. Going soft. Perhaps his newfound affection for Charles is colouring his view of the world, influencing how he sees situations he might not have seen as risky before, even...pulling him away from the job at hand, from what Dutch needs him to be. Maybe he’s being selfish.

It’s not fair of him to put any self-interest before Dutch. Dutch has only ever looked after him, after all of them. Has brought him up to be good at what he does. And he needs Arthur’s support. Things are hard enough without him causing more stress, surely.

“Dutch, I-”

“As would I,” Micah says, and ruins the moment entirely.

They meander beneath the rising cliff, the trail twisting back and forth in lazy curves, climbing higher. Movement above catches their attention north of Dewberry Creek - riders on the ridge, overlooking the road, and the flash of green in their clothing makes it clear who they are, who they’re riding for. 

All four turn at the sight of them far below, disappearing away from the cliff edge, and Micah leads them on undeterred around the edge of the plains where the grass can’t tell whether it’s green or brown, scrubby savannah or riparian field, the overflow floodplain meeting the dry scarp of the stretching prairie in a tangle of sedge and brush.

Emerald Ranch appears in the northeast distance as they climb higher, not quite sparkling as its namesake, but shimmering with the heat haze, blurred against the backdrop of foreshortened forest towards the east. The blur of green swims, rich swathes of colour, sweating with the shallow water that congregates in the heart of the marshland to the north. Waterfowl are pinpricks of pink and white, herds of whitetail no more than brown smudges further than Arthur can see.

Climbing towards the higher ridges, they sit heavy in their saddles to counterbalance, sweat already clinging to all three horses’ flanks, and all three men’s, at that. Baylock tosses the foam from his mouth, and drops to a steaming trot, heavy with the heat, and the three of them ride abreast for the last dozen miles or so, Micah starting up the conversation again as they crest the ridge.

“Maybe he’s right, Dutch,” he says, and Arthur’s eyebrow raises before he can tell it not to. The sun burns white in Micah’s hat, having to tip his face up from beneath it to see beyond the glare. “Maybe I have pushed too hard. Got us into situations that...coulda been safer. I _just_ -”

His voice wobbles, a hollow sort of cracking sound, like someone’s trodden on a raw egg. “I see all those mouths we gotta feed, and I-”

It’s like watching a particularly terrible stage play, seeing the emotions jostle on Micah’s face in real time, jowls hanging, brows pulled down as if by strings, moustache highlighting the downturn in his mouth and giving the distinct impression he’s melting, like a wax figure starting to drip in the heat. He clenches his features up, puckered together as if held by clothespins, and Arthur gets the delirious urge to start laughing.

“I dream too big!” he says, gesturing up at the uncaring sky like the soprano warbling her eponymous lament at the climax of the opera, crying out her aria for catharsis. “Caring too much, that’s my problem. I feel so _strongly_ for everyone.”

“Caring too much?” Dutch says, slightly hushed with emotion, false or not, Arthur can’t tell. He gazes imploringly across at Micah beside him, ignoring Arthur’s abject incredulity from his other side. “There’s no such thing.”

Arthur bursts out laughing. “This is horse shit!” he says, laughter spilling from him, titanic and snorting, like the neighing of a horse. “From both of you! ‘ _Caring too much_ ’, this from the feller who shot up an entire town of honest innocent folk for some rusty revolvers-”

“My guns _ain’t_ -”

“He ain’t care for no one but hisself and you _know_ it, Dutch! What absolute stinkin’ horse shit-”

“It might be!” Dutch snaps, and Arthur’s laughter is torn out of him, stopping at once. “Micah might be full of shit! Colm O’Driscoll might be full of shit. The promise, of this great nation-”

_Oh here we go._ Arthur lets himself deflate, rolling his eyes beneath his hat as they emerge at the top of the incline, the plains stretching out before them like gold green tapestry, inlaid only with the great Twin Stacks and their cousins, pillars at the unmarked gateway to the Heartlands. The rock is stoic and sun-parched, corniced with wiry grass and eagle nests, pale stone cliffs crumbling for miles all the way to Valentine.

“Men created equal,” Dutch continues, gesturing to his enraptured audience of Micah alone. “ _Liberty_ , and _justice_ for all… That might be nonsense too. But it’s worth trying for. It’s worth _believing_ in. Can’t you see that, friend?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur grumbles, strained through his clenched teeth.

“ _Try_. All I ask is you try.”

“Uh huh.”

“Alright, cowpoke,” Micah interjects, gathering Baylock back to walk, peeling off the track to the left. The other horses slow too, Arthur sitting deep in the saddle to keep Magpie steady. “We’ll be meetin’ down on the plain over yonder. Head up the rise from here and you should have a clear view to keep an eye on things.”

“Right,” Arthur says, trying to pick a visual path through the yucca and prickly pear blanketing the cliff, a carpet of thorns and brush. 

The road they had been following continues down, tumbling over the rise to a triangular crossroads, splitting through Twin Stack Pass and skirting beneath the hill they’re currently on, high above the plains. “However this shakes out, let’s meet back at the fork in the road down by the Pass afterwards.”

“We’ll be there, partner,” Micah assures, much too friendly, and kicks Baylock up to canter, Dutch tipping his hat as he collects his reins and follows, leaving Arthur alone amongst the cacti.

He sighs as he nudges Magpie forward, carefully moving through the foliage. Bees hum around the cactus flowers, the only wildlife braving the sun seemingly a few hardy prairie dogs, scattering to their burrows when Magpie approaches, picking her way up the rocky bluff, shade lessening with every yard they climb. 

Finally the slope evens out, spilling up over the cliff to a bare outcrop, stark rock towering above the plains. The scrub thins and withers, bedrock exposed like bleached bone, and Arthur dismounts a dozen yards or so from the cliff edge, to let Magpie find some grass before it’s replaced completely by the rock, bringing his rifle with him as he leaves her.

Tumbling into the thin air, the cliff is a sheer drop. A vulture leaps out into the abyss as Arthur approaches, and soars down on spread black wings, pinions wide and pointed like grasping fingers. He kicks a scattering of pebbles and peers cautiously down over the edge, barely able to see the bottom, only distinguishing the contrast in colour between the pale rock and the golden prairie, some thousand feet below at least.

It’s a beautiful view. The savannah swells beneath him, an endless desert of dust and rocky pasture, broken only by the crooked oil derrick still leaning precariously in the centre, black as if scorched by the crevice of dark brush it sits within. Surging in slow waves, the dry sea rolls to the horizon in great pitching curves, the rocks caught up in the motion and thrown through the sedges and forbs, the weeds and cacti, like the tattered hulls of beached ships, dashed across the landscape with the scattered clumps of greenery, flotsam strewn across a beach.

Somewhere over to his right, indiscernible amongst the miles, is the ridge where they’d hunted the bison. 

The memory of Charles that day is a treasure to him, alight with his own internal fire, in anger and elation both, like a star going supernova, and Arthur unable to break himself free of the gravitational pull. Not wanting to. Just a speck of space dust caught in the sinking inferno of Charles. Since that day, somehow nothing in his life has seemed quite the same.

His breath shudders.

He steps back from the edge. As he lowers himself down, with one last glance behind at Magpie, he props the rifle on his elbow, lying flat on the rock, warmed from the sun despite the morning hour. Within moments, the stark white of The Count enters his peripheral vision, and he checks the rifle’s scope by following Dutch across the plains, his red waistcoat the only bright colour for dozens of miles, cantering steadily with Baylock beside him.

Compulsive, Arthur rechecks the front and rear sights, opens and shuts the breech, sets and resets the stock against his shoulder. His thumbnail picks at the point of the hammer, head up to follow the black and white smudges of Baylock and The Count moving together through the prairie. Movement on his left attracts his attention, and through the scope he can see a new group approaching, two riders led by Colm O’Driscoll himself, all on dark horses, like storm clouds blowing through the fair sky.

He takes a breath.

The group rides on and then dismounts, and Arthur watches them walk to some barren patch of ground, a no man's land between the two fronts, Dutch and Micah following suit and approaching from his right. There’s no wind, but so high on the cliff, Arthur shivers, hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Intuition perhaps, or maybe just a lack of faith.

Twisting on the ground, he glances over his shoulder. Nothing. Magpie’s white head is just visible some distance back down the slope, stark against the dirt and dark plants, relaxing amongst the prickly pear.

Maybe he truly is getting too old for this.

Colm swaggers as he walks, with attitude or the stiffness of age, Arthur can’t tell, hands hovering around his holsters, just as Dutch’s are, giving them the appearance of two plump birds of paradise, donned in their fine feathers, puffed-up and dancing to entice the resident female. It’s an odd scene in the middle of the lonely prairie, like the stagehands have misread the script, and changed the background to something that doesn’t fit the actors.

Arthur exhales, and watches the interaction through the scope. The two other O’Driscolls flank Colm like trained dogs, rifles held at the ready, and Arthur can’t help but worry that Dutch is outnumbered. With just Micah for support. There’s no cover they could run to. A clump of weeds isn’t going to stop a rifle bullet. He’s Dutch’s only defence. 

No pressure at all.

Colm seems to be laughing. Turning to his subordinates, gesturing wide. Dutch’s hands move. Colm encroaches again, taking a few steps closer. They taunt each other, skirting mutually assured destruction. Daring the other to break first in silent stand-off.

Whatever conversation they’re having, Arthur isn’t part of it, watching uselessly above them. Again, Colm steps closer. There’s barely an arm’s length between them. Close enough to touch.

Arthur shifts his aim. Hovers on Colm’s haggard face, slightly out of focus due to the sheer distance. And Colm - somehow - glances up to his right. Directly at the glint of the rifle scope. 

For a split second, Arthur looks him in the eye.

He flinches back. Footsteps clatter behind him, skidding on the rock. He turns, and the butt of a rifle smashes into his head.

  
  


*

  
  


Heady, hot afternoon is lazing towards evening by the time Dutch and Micah return to Clemens Point. Clouds have scattered out from the west, and red haze drifts with them, dust in the air, blown by a consoling breeze that comes in from the lake, a welcome respite from the still heat of day.

The venison he and Arthur brought in recently has lasted well, now cured and salted to preserve the last of the meat, and he helps Pearson in preparing the day’s evening meal with some of it. As much as one can help Pearson - he’s too many cooks spoiling his own broth when it’s just him alone - but Charles lends his hand to dicing vegetables, and crumbles a healthy dose of salt, pepper, and dry herbs into the pot when Pearson isn’t looking. White people are hopeless.

Preoccupied as he is, he misses The Count and Baylock reappearing from the treeline, sweating from a hard day of riding, white foam dripping from their chewing mouths. They’re untacked and washed down before Charles has a moment to notice them, and particularly, that Arthur isn’t with them.

Magpie isn’t with the mares; Arthur hasn’t slipped in without him seeing.

“You’ll take your fingers off,” Pearson chides, and takes the knife from Charles’ distracted hand before he can lose a few knuckles to the carrot he’s chopping. “Though I suppose it’d add protein-”

“Arthur left with them this morning,” he says plainly, frowning at Dutch and Micah, deep in conversation beside their horses. “Didn’t he?”

“Hm? Oh. Sure.”

Pearson takes over with the carrot. “I volunteered to go with ‘em, I did. It was my idea - well, partly, I uh, _facilitated_ the idea, certainly. It’s a shame they didn’t take me. You should see me in a fight, Mister Smith, I’m like a-”

“Why isn’t he with them now?”

Heavy brows sinking as he lowers his knife, pointed in ‘cornered tiger’ fashion, Pearson simply shrugs, turning to add the diced carrot to the stew pot. He drags the back of his hand across his wet forehead. “Mister Morgan… He’s a wanderer, like myself, always has been, long as I’ve known him. Don’t like being moored in one place too long. Gets restless, y’know?”

Charles knows; he himself is much the same. Being effectively stuck in camp for so long is starting to fray the ends of his nerves. But what could have come up that Arthur wouldn’t leave it until the next day?

Pearson continues, gesturing with the knife in his hand. “S’why he never married - or, I assume that’s why he never married. I didn’t take a wife myself for that very reason, not for lack of suitors, might I add! Men like us need to roam!” He points a celery stalk at Charles. “We’re wild stallions, sir! We must rove and ramble, seek our pleasures in far fields! One woman could not hope to satisfy-”

“I get the picture,” Charles says, dry as old hay. Dry as Pearson’s field full of suitors, no doubt.

He suspects Arthur never married for a very different reason than wanderlust, namely the gender of the candidates, but he keeps quiet, taking the celery stick from Pearson to wash before chopping.

“Yes, well,” Pearson huffs, lending him back the knife. “He probably just got sidetracked.”

Charles turns his attention back to vegetables and sighs, mildly disappointed. Tells himself Pearson’s probably right in that Arthur must have got distracted. Likely spotted something interesting on the way back and had to settle in to draw it, find a shady spot to sit in the grass with Magpie and start sketching, journal propped on his knees as always. An oddly shaped tree or a rundown building, a new plant for his compendium. He’d only realise it was so late when his stomach starts to rumble with the waning sun, and decide to set up his bedroll, find some wood for a fire, rather than trek back to camp. Lopsided smile on his face as he watches Magpie roll in the dusty grass, making sure her dinner is sorted before he starts on his own. Maybe sharing an apple with her for dessert as the stars emerge, sketching the constellations he can recognise before he settles to sleep.

The image reassures, and Charles has to stifle his smile as he adds the celery to the stew to soften and sweat, obligingly stirring the pot as Pearson instructs for a while longer before calling out to the camp that the food is nearly ready, and it’s all they’re going to get.

Without Arthur lingering at the edges of his attention, Charles sits alone to eat, until Hosea joins him at the table, seemingly grateful for the relative silence, judging by the singing coming from the campfire. Despite the cheerful hubbub of evening, the laughter and games, Charles remains deep in his own thoughts, picking through the venison and vegetables in his bowl. 

It’s striking how empty he feels without Arthur. Without knowing when he’ll be back. It’s not _new_ , Arthur often leaves camp for several days at a time, chasing wildlife, gunslingers, treasure; whatever Dutch, Hosea, random strangers, distressed damsels, or the other gang members ask of him. It’s not unheard of, and it’s not like they spend every waking moment together when he is in camp, but it’s the first time Charles has noticed how acutely...bereft it leaves him. Like he’s lost a sense, or lost Taima, half-blind or limbless or imprisoned. Unable to rely on freedom as a given, on the certainty of knowing he could just leave whenever he wants. Trapped, somehow, in the empty space where Arthur isn’t.

It sounds pathetic. In his head. He’s survived twenty odd years on his own, flitting through gangs and groups and other people like a migratory bird, never to stay for more than the season’s turn. Being alone has become safety. It’s the canvas roll he sleeps on, the knife in his belt. He’s good at being alone. Quicker, quieter, _better_.

And yet, in the past few months, he’s found being with Arthur doesn’t feel like other people. He isn’t too much. He doesn’t sap Charles’ energy, like so many others do. With Arthur, he no longer feels the desire to be alone. There’s no need; Arthur provides that same freedom, that same uninhibited comfort. And, he has to admit, he’s grown used to not being quite as lonely.

Charles sighs. Tells himself to snap out of it.

Across the table, Hosea looks up at him, and after a moment’s thought, head tilted like a wise bird, calls out to Dutch where he’s sitting outside his tent, reading one of his Evelyn Miller books. “Hey, Dutch! Where’s Arthur?”

“What’s that?”

“Arthur. Big feller, not that tall, kinda rough looking. Bonnie blue eyes. Known him for twenty years. You leave ‘im behind?”

Hosea snickers a wry laugh, and Charles tries to take comfort in the humour. He doesn’t turn to look at Dutch behind him, studying a chunk of carrot in his bowl.

“Oh he’s- Some errand, you know him,” Dutch calls back, waving his book dismissively. “Be back tomorrow, he said.”

“Huh.”

Tapping his spoon on the rim of his bowl, Hosea looks down into the jumble of his stew, thinking again. “Boy’s like a bloodhound sometimes,” he says absently, only half directed at Charles, finishing his food in silence.

  
  


*

  
  


Silence hits him first.

His head is pounding, deafening loud, drowning all external sound in the gushing thump of his pulse. When his eyes open, it’s slow and out of time, vision blotted with black storm clouds, red haze like the Scarlett Meadows dust. Still no discernible sound comes to him, though he can see people above him, faces swimming through the gloom, lips moving wordlessly like the painted mouths of ventriloquist dummies, clattering open and shut on wooden hinges.

The faces aren’t recognisable.

“He’s dead,” one of the men says, and another laughs, stooping down to admire Arthur’s disjointed blinking, the swelling bruise beneath the skin of his forehead.

“Hello, sugar,” he sings, and squeezes Arthur’s cheeks between his thumb and forefinger, grinning at the tiny noise of protest that’s squashed in Arthur’s dumb mouth.

“Oh, you ain’t dead, is you?”

A third man chuckles, a sound like pulling the clapboards off a house. Ripping. “Not _yet_ , anyway-” he says, and pain explodes in Arthur’s ankle, shuddering all the way up to his hip in a bright burst. 

All he can do is whimper, and as he instinctively curls inwards, a dark shape snaps across the pitted sky of his vision, a clenched fist smashing into his head. It throws him back, what little he could see collapsing in half as another foot is brought down on his ankle, then his knee, boots thudding on his crunching bones as he’s kicked back to unconsciousness.

The sky is a different colour, next time he wakes. Brighter, and banded with pink. Like blossom.

All he registers is pain. Pulsing in his head, in his chest, cold below his waist. He groans, a guttural, animal noise, cracking in his throat, one hand moving on a clump of something - grass, perhaps - lying face down. There’s an acrid sort of smell all around him, one he recognises dimly as horse piss, leaving no doubt as to what the wet sludge is he’s lying in. Not just mud.

Again, no sound comes to him for what feels like an age. The light is harsh in his scrunched eyes, bleary, like ink has been smudged across the viewing lens, the puffy skin of his eyelids swollen, squeezing his skull. Cheek cold, pressed on the ground, he tries to lift his head, and he groans again, the weight too heavy to move, swirling with the dizzy deep urge to vomit.

“Y’think he’ll fall for it?”

“I’unno… Colm’s got a sense.”

Colm?

Who the Hell is Colm?

He shifts, trying to find his knees beneath him, somewhere in the numbness. Pain rockets through his legs and he slips, skidding in the mud with another grunt. If he can just- Find his balance-

“You don’t think- I just... Handin’ him over to the law, it’s… I don’t know. Strange times.”

“They _killed_ Seamus! Fuck the whole lotta them. With this feller, Colm’s right, we can draw them all back.”

None of it makes sense. Nothing penetrates the fog in Arthur’s head, nauseated and panicking fast, adrenaline starting to prickle in his nerves, muscles trembling from the pain and the determined punch of his fight-or-flight response. Nervous system taking over. He needs to run. He’s got to move.

“Where’d Colm and Patrick head off to?”

“Into town I think. Talk to the law.”

“Nah, they wouldn’t. It ain’t worth the risk.”

Tentative, he finally finds his knees, gritting his teeth as they align beneath him. Hands fist weakly in the sludge, pushing his body weight up.

“Colm’s got a sense about Van der Linde! He can play him.”

Crawling, Arthur hauls himself by inches through the mud, slipping down away from the clustered men, barely swallowing the agony it causes.

“Once he realises we got his man here, they’ll all come right into the trap, mark my words.”

There are horses in the distance. How far, Arthur can’t tell, vision swimming, head like dynamite has exploded inside his skull, legs like lead.

“And then we can all head off. Free as birds.”

“Van der Linde’ll really care that much for some dried-up cowboy?”

Groaning through his teeth, breathless with his panic, Arthur stumbles to his feet, barely able to feel them at all. The pain has made them numb, and he all but falls into a clumsy instinctive run, muscle memory carrying him desperately forward, only just managing to hear the men start shouting behind him.

Breath in his mouth, he wills his legs to keep moving, stumbling through the undergrowth, stinging nettles and thorns. The shouting stops, and for a split second, Arthur feels freedom, within reach past the blurring trees. He grasps for it, panting-

A bullet tears through his side. He collapses with a wail of agony, leg crumpling as blood erupts across his middle, throwing him to the ground sideways, rolling through bracken and weeds to a shaking, heaving stop.

“Did I kill ya?”

“Ughhmnn…” 

All he can do is groan, curled over on his bleeding side. His breath is fast draining, oxygen seeping out of the air. “Not yet,” he chokes, and manages to see the three blurry men again standing over him, the glint of metal telling him he’s an easy target to a very large gun, laughter echoing threefold through the wadding filling his head.

“No, of course not.”

“Not yet-”

Something hard nudges his left shoulder. The teeth of a muzzle, twin barrels. He draws in breath, fast, short gasps turning into a bolting gallop.

“But I will,” the man growls, and Arthur’s shoulder explodes.

 

He drifts. Sleep weighs him down, dragging at his eyelids, his head, like he’s shackled to rocks that have been thrown overboard, and though the water is crushing, choking in his lungs, he’s powerless to fight it, succumbing to the undertow.

When there’s light, it’s garish. And sound too, muffled as if through cloth; when it comes, it’s shrill, distorted, like the violent torture of a phonograph in both his ears, echoing in his screaming head.

He’s moving, mostly. Rocked by a horse’s ambling walk, four beats, swaying underneath him. Its coat bristles on his cheek, dusty, hot with friction, and for a long time it’s all he can feel, existing in a numb nothingness between states of consciousness, drifting on an unseen sea, between black sleep and the red sloshing around his lolling head.

No pain comes. Not at first.

Night rolls in unnoticed. The heat disappears from his blistered neck and the air is still, crickets buzzing through the fog in his head as if his skull is swarming with insects, flies already eating at his corpse. 

At some point, there’s grass beneath him, and at another, water, dark with amorphous shadow. It’s impossible to tell in which order the images come, jumbling together, blurring through the tunnel of his vision in a dizzying lurch, the bitter after-adrenaline tang of nausea like a dead dog in his gut.

“Finally…”

He swims awake, head jerked back. All he sees is darkness, and the impression of shapes, pushing and pressing, churning like worms in furrowed dirt. His arms are caught - he can see them - yet none of it is tangible, like he’s watching it happen to someone else, through a frosted window, some stranger puppeteering his body.

A groan sounds, in his own voice, low and plaintive and completely detached from himself, ripped from somewhere inside him that he can’t pinpoint, and he’s moved, dragged forwards, his knees scraping beneath him, legs bent cleanly in two like snapped root vegetables.

“Put his weapons over there.”

The ground falls upwards, and manages to hit him in the face, another weeping moan tumbling from him like his limbs, scattered across the dusty earth. Dull pain coats his entire left side, blunt somehow, like the strike of a mallet, but still muted, aching, something his brain hasn’t entirely processed yet. He grasps a handful of dirt, pushing weakly with his right hand.

Wherever the left hand is, he can’t tell.

“Where we puttin’ him?”

“Storm cellar, I reckon.”

“Get his kit off, let’s see what Cowboy’s packing.”

Something tightens around both arms, and with a new moan he’s hauled up on his haunches, shirt ripped backwards. The fabric wrenches his shoulders, and Arthur cries out in a mangled scream, the pain suddenly exploding through his entire torso, white hot and pounding.

All at once, his brain seems to realise it only has half a shoulder left to work with, shirt peeled back to reveal his sodden underwear, blown apart in a great black crater, fabric singed and sticking to a deep, mutilating wound. His head is shrieking, panicking and unable to understand, to see. It doesn’t respond as Arthur tries to move, to fight the arms on him, to look at whatever is causing him so much pain, and as he twists and writhes, the muscles of his breast ooze red in the hole, tissue on show, yellowish fat turned black with gunpowder.

There’s a gaping pothole lodged under his collarbone, like a mortar has gone off beneath the skin and hit the flesh of his back beneath his shoulder blade, ripping it apart from the front and bruising as it couldn’t break through behind. The tattered edges are like sheared muslin, blackened and bleeding, muscle and cartilage cut to mere ribbons in the pit. He sobs out loud, scrambling on half his limbs.

“Well fuck.”

“Look what you did, ya fool- Ugh, that’s rank.”

“He’s barely got an arm!”

It’s agony. Burning, hot in every pore. Excruciating pain. Arthur mewls, pathetic, left arm held awkwardly still while the other half of him fights for its life, as if it can help stop the pain, grab it and stop the leak, hold the dam together. Sick fear starts to pulse through the dark abyss of his awareness, panic rising. He’s hurt. He’s hurt and doesn’t know why, can’t tell who’s pulling at his clothes, has no idea where he is. Why can’t he find his left arm?

“Oh who cares? Fuckin’ hurry it up, I’m starving.”

The ground lurches up to meet his forehead again, thudding, like punching a sack of flour. His breath is knocked out of him with a whimper, and rough hands grab at his hips, unfolding his limp legs to pull his jeans, forcing the stiff denim down his thighs, belt leather straining. Instinct makes him kick, shunting himself along the ground with his knees despite how it racks his torso, and as he scrabbles he’s dimly aware of the laughter from behind, from all around, with no ability to tell its source, no way of knowing which way he needs to go to get away.

An arm grapples for his thighs. Hauls him along the ground, scraped on his belly, falling flat forwards once again. The movement seems to ricochet in his shoulder, juddering loud and metallic, forcing another desperate cry, a reflex inhale that brings a lungful of dust with it. He coughs, whining wet grating cries with every breath, alien and agonised as panic starts to take hold and he scrambles in the dirt, breaking his own fingernails.

“Stop squirming, you fuck-”

“Listen to him squeal!”

Hands hold his hips, jeans caught in his boots, and Arthur falls again, panting for breath in the dark silence, pain so violent it dizzies what little there is of his vision, like tinder to his rising fear. He’s panicking, fighting blind and deaf and dumb, until a weight crushes down onto his shoulder, and holds it to the ground, pinned beneath a thick-heeled boot so the others can strip him.

He screeches with the pain, and the darkness swallows him again.

 

The next time he wakes enough to know it, he’s curled on the floor in the dark. Stone presses against his cheek, huddled in the corner of some kind of cellar. He’s still in his underwear, wet with sweat and sticky with far too much blood, black and glistening.

Consciousness swirls to him, like a faint smell in the air, not quite strong enough to determine. A thick fog shrouds his every sense, his memory, his ability to think, and all he can do for some time is breathe against the stone floor, desperately picking through what little he can remember.

He’s hurt. Bad. There’s a hole in his proprioception where his left side should be, as if it’s somehow got lost between his nerves and his brain.

Slowly, breathing hard with the effort, he tries to move his hands, and finds them caught somewhere down around his middle, bound in rope to a chain loop embedded in the wall. Leashed like a dog. He tugs, and pain shudders so violently through his arm that he cries out, and can see his own consciousness waver in a white, sparkling blur before regaining its hold, his voice ragged and rasping.

So he’s being held captive. Why? Where’s Dutch?

Dutch- Dutch was there before. Colm O’Driscoll was there. Grass and rock; a long ride. Had he been captured? Did Colm hurt Dutch? Was Arthur not there to-

A clattering sounds above his head. Light spills into the space from a point he can’t see, dark and white, like moonlight would be. Garish. Too much for him to process.

“What’re you gonna do wit’ him?”

“Colm said he don’t want him til mornin’, we can do whatever we like with him. Long as he don’t die.”

“Maybe we introduce ourselves, hm? Repay him for Niall, and Seamus too.”

Three figures shift through the shadow, crowding the cellar room. Arthur instinctively presses himself into the corner, a cowering animal, and can hear the disjointed rumble of laughter echo around him, disorientating all the more. A candle is lit, set across the room on some kind of workbench, flickering orange.

“Hi sugar!”

Something heavy smashes into his absent shoulder, and the pain is so great that he doesn’t wake up for several dark seconds, only coming to when the kicks move to his abdomen, his groin, doubling him over. Weak and whimpering, he curls his head into his chest, instinct trying to protect him, paralysed in pain and numbed to everything but.

A hand grabs his hair after the kicking, forces his head up. Strands break between the fingers, and he twists away from the grinning face in front of him, the heat of breath on his swollen face. “That’s a nasty hole ya got there in that shoulder, sugar.”

“Reckon he makes a better hole than he does a cowboy.”

“Ha! Why else is Van der Linde keepin’ him around?”

The laughter deafens, reverberating around him from every angle. His union suit is pulled sharply away from his chest, yanked down to bare his ruined skin to the firelight, his chest hair slick with coagulated blood like an oil spill, clots wrenched open as the fabric pulls. He writhes, pleads in wordless noise.

The three faces before him swim with the dancing flame, wet lips and swirling eyes, ogling, hands cupping his breast, prodding at the bruising like a poker at a fire, and laughing when he cries his pain, hunched over as if to shield his bare chest from view, collapsing the corners of himself like a house with crumbling walls.

With a dull thud, his head is shoved back into the wall. It crunches.

“Mmf-”

“Here, bet you’re thirsty, huh cowboy?”

The hard neck of a bottle is pressed to his lips, and before he can register the need to stop breathing, liquid is flowing down his throat, spilling from his mouth and down his front. He splutters, spitting a fine mist of whiskey as he chokes. It earns him a punch, a new hand pulling his hair painfully back, forcing the bottle past Arthur’s gagging tongue.

“Too much for you, sugar? And here I am bein’ generous-”

He swallows what he can, bitter whiskey flooding his mouth until he chokes again, and most of it is expelled burning through his nose, coughing as he scrambles for air, torso collapsing with the weight of the pain. Retching, his hands fight the bindings, unable to balance, and again the laughter bounces around his head, his own coughing racking through his body until all he sees is stars.

“Van der Linde got himself a lightweight!”

“Can’t handle a stiff one, huh sugar?”

With a grating moan, Arthur thrashes on the stone, chest heaving, tongue somewhere down his throat. He finds his knees beneath him and gags, bowed over, drool dripping to the floor.

“Ohh, that’s disgusting.”

“Is he gonna hurl?”

A boot lands in his stomach and he collapses sideways, caught by his hands tethered to the wall, swinging off them like a corpse through the gallows hatch. He groans again, desperate. Urgent. Another kick comes, and his gut lurches- There’s no way to stop it-

He vomits. His stomach empties itself, spattering across the stone floor and down his front, barely managing to turn his head to the side as the acid burns his throat. Nose streaming, he curls over on his knees to heave, bile and saliva dribbling thick from his mouth until he can breathe again, and the chorus of revulsion from the O’Driscolls is the last sound he hears before his head is crushed beneath a boot, and he’s knocked out once more.

 

The next days - one? three? thirty? - pass in featureless hours, seconds, years, all running awash together like watercolours, diluted of all meaning and importance until it’s an insipid liquid blur, vaguely brown in colour. 

He wakes sometimes in starts, gasping like he’s finally found the surface of the sea he nearly drowned in, waves breaking over his head, and at other times merely slinks towards consciousness, creeping into awareness on his belly, with the same drudging slowness as a slug through mud. The painless bliss of sleep still clings to his extremities, begging him not to wake, to give in to the dark, the dumb daze between his ears.

He’s moved, at some point. Impossible to know when - today, yesterday, some time tomorrow, last Tuesday. Without any reference points - no light, no noise, no natural tiredness to signal where he is in which particular day, which bar of his circadian rhythm he’s supposed to be playing - he loses his grip on time, and thus reality, galloping away from him and yet crawling all at once, bracketed by the sheer agony of his shoulder, which numbs his ability to think clearly all the more.

Worse comes soon after.

They string him up by his ankles. He’s shackled and hung from the ceiling, bound in irons, biting through the skin with the impossible load of his entire body suspended underneath.

The cuffs start to bleed before long, dripping down towards his knees, and when one of the O’Driscolls brings a candle with which to inspect the carcass in the cellar, dangling like a side of meat, even through his failing eyesight Arthur can tell his toes should absolutely not be the colour they are. Unable to hold up his own arms, they dangle uselessly over his head, numb and swinging, left to bleed his own flesh dry.

He can’t tell how long he hangs.

Blood pools in his head. It throbs behind his eyes, pulling them shut in a red black haze, his breath squeezed tight and short. Swimming in and out of cognizance, he’s barely coherent as to whether he’s still upside down or has been dropped to curl on the floor, left motionless there until the kicks to his stomach wake him up, no need now for any shackles. 

He’s beaten on the floor and while hanging both, a punching bag for nameless faces, disembodied voices, a pale quarter of some dead animal, left to bleed before butchering. He hardly notices. The pain from every single inch of him is so immense, so paralytic, such _torture_ , that he starts to barely feel the hits at all. Like a single drop of rain in the entire Atlantic ocean - the beatings, the fingers probing sick and excruciating into the hole in his shoulder, the slaps, kicks, grabs, the tearing at his underwear to expose him to the cold, the whiskey bottle pressing to his lips when the laughter stops, clonking into his teeth - it’s another teaspoon of water filling his lungs when he’s already shut in the morgue having drowned, completely and utterly insignificant. Short, fleeting moments of respite are nothing, mocking even - sunlight on the wings of a butterfly, already skewered and pinned in a collector’s glass case.

Voices come and go. Faces whirl and drift, candlelit, and he’s touched by unseen hands, wet with unknown fluid. It’s violating, viscerally horrific, but he’s powerless to fight, to protect himself from any of it, and even the instinct that he should fight is long lost, silenced by so much pain. He bears the comments, the laughter, the brags and threats, like he’s forced to bear his own body weight, crushed beneath the load and yet helpless but to carry it.

“Y’all think I could get him to suck my balls for some water?”

“He’s got pretty enough lips for it.”

He knows cawing laughter, the squawking of a thousand crows, carrion birds pecking at his corpse. Bottles crack on his head. Glass splinters against walls, and his bare feet scrape through it when he’s dragged. Liquid is forced down his throat, the only sustenance he gets.

“Bet he’s well practiced, ain’t you sugarplum? Why else Van der Linde keepin’ him around? For his great conversation?”

“He’s a couple holes on legs, soft an’ warm like any cunt.”

When the whiskey does come, it’s like nectar to his dehydrated mouth, thirst overtaking the forgotten knowledge that it will only dehydrate him further, and he drinks with such sloppy desperation that he regurgitates most of it, even while hanging upside down.

By some miracle of instinct, his right arm is still mobile enough to clumsily wipe his vomit from where it drips over his nose before he aspirates, that somehow seeming like an even more humiliating death than the one from blood loss or blunt force trauma or whatever other end he’s heading ever closer towards.

Perhaps on the third day, or maybe still the first, or possibly not until the following autumn, blood starts to bubble from his nose unbidden, dripping steadily over his cheeks like a persistent leak. His eyelids fall into spasm, choked by swollen eyeballs that feel more like overripe fruit, heavy and weeping, like they’re grapes caught between two pinching fingers, seconds away from bursting. 

The air is cold in the cellar, fetid with the smell of vomit, of sickness and filth, and it makes it even harder to breathe than it already is, Arthur managing nothing but an intermittent rattle, like obstructed sobs, the sound of wrinkled tissue paper crackling in the shallow flutter of his lungs.

Blood overflows from his nostrils. He breathes through his teeth.

 

A clattering wakes him. 

There’s a lantern, but Arthur can’t tell whether it’s day or night in the bright colourless glimpse he gets through an open hatch door, glow bouncing chaotically off the stone walls like a mobile migraine. Or even what day and night are, let alone what they look like.

He groans, braying. Like the noise is ripped out of him by a steel hook, dazzled by pain, blood vessel stars pounding in his eyes.

“Arthur Morgan.”

The voice is familiar. Cloying.

A figure sways through the darkness, and Arthur can’t help his delayed flinch as the shape reaches him, braced for more pain and not knowing when it will begin. Like tumbling over a cliff edge blindfolded, falling and falling and unable to see how close the ground is, when the end will come. “It’s good to see ya.”

“C-Colm…”

Trying to speak makes him cough, chest wracked with heavy, wheezing shudders, the blood from his nose spattering around his top lip. Colm leans down, close to his face, hideous, writhing in Arthur’s unseeing eyes like a melting waxwork. “How’s the wound?” he asks, obscenely cheerful.

It strangles a laugh from Arthur. A meagre, grisly noise, like treading on a snail and crushing it, shell and all. “Ha… H-Hardly...feel it…”

“You will,” Colm says, purring.

He inspects the weeping crater in Arthur’s shoulder, wrinkling his nose with the smell. The skin is singed and oozing, already turning towards infection, the buckshot trapped beneath his collarbone with the wadding and half the muzzle gases, the tattered scraps of fabric burnt into the mess. Only a few pellets have broken through to become exit wounds, gouging holes in the swathes of muscle holding Arthur’s back together, pockmarked with the black bruise beneath his shoulder blade.

It’s filthy, nauseating, Colm clicking his tongue as he pulls back, muttering something Arthur doesn’t catch. The word ‘septic’ doesn’t cause much alarm.

How can it? Any fear he felt before has long been replaced by a torpid, hopeless lethargy, the need to be free from pain easily drowning out the screaming instinct to fight, to survive. Besides, if he knows nothing else, he knows Dutch wouldn’t abandon him. Dutch will come soon. He’s sure.

“Dutch…” Arthur croaks, and Colm laughs, a metallic clinking coming with it, like a spoon scraping a bowl.

“Now ain’t that funny, I came down here special just to chat about him! You weren’t so talkative the first time round.”

Colm’s hand appears in Arthur’s dead eyes, and he instinctively grabs for it, protecting himself, pushing him away, only he’s jolted backwards by the shackles biting into his ankles, and swings lamely in the air, spinning with a dizzying lurch. More laughter comes, and Arthur only groans, struggling to breathe.

“Tell me,” Colm says, and then there’s a sharpness pressing at his ribcage, something hard and round, like the muzzle of a handgun. “Fine gun like you. Why you still runnin’ around with old Dutch?”

The figure shifts away from him. His breathing becomes harsh with the swinging motion, lungs fighting for more air than they can find. “Could come ride with me. Make real money.”

“Ain’t… Ain’t ah- ‘B-bout…” 

“Oh no, of course.”

Again the voice has moved, and Arthur can’t see where Colm is, can’t move his head from the weight crushing down on it, sure his skull will explode with the slightest misstep. The pressure behind his eyes is agony, every organ choking under his bodyweight, starved of blood and oxygen.

“It’s Dutch’s famous- Charisma!”

Colm kicks him, boot colliding with the bullet graze across his ribcage. Pain erupts through every inch of him and Arthur yells, piling on top of the pain that was already there, a brutal, incomprehensible torture, splitting him like a hatchet does a carcass. It’s like every pore in his body has had a metal screw jammed into it, like his brain is leaking out of his ears.

The noise he makes is animal, spinning pathetically on the hook and sobbing without tears, breath caught in his strangled throat. Whatever Colm says next is completely lost to him, the vice too strong to let anything but pain through, shrieking the danger to a deaf, failing brain, frazzled into short-circuit. “No... N-No-”

“Oh you lie, my friend.”

Another kick. The opposite side. Nearly as painful despite the lack of bullet wound. More noise is torn from him, heaving, shackles creaking, splitting his skin.

“And I thought Dutch preached truth!” Colm says, appearing again in front of him, the flash of his revolver like a poker in Arthur’s eyes.

“P-Please,” he chokes, desperate. “L-Le… Lemme...go-”

The sound of his own voice is pitiful, reduced to begging Colm O’Driscoll. “The way I see it,” Colm says, low, fuzzy in Arthur’s hearing like a distant conversation. “They get him… They forget about me.”

There’s no answer. Arthur’s eyes are barely open, breathing shallow like a slowly drowning fish, fast losing the ability to even gasp. “Y’see…” Colm blurs, and then there’s a hand on his upper stomach, tracing the ripped and gaping buttons of his union suit. “We lure an angry Dutch in to rescue ya,” he says, fingers dipping upwards over the bared patches of his abdomen, dirty nails snagging on hair that’s been exposed by the torn fabric.

Desperation flares in Arthur, making him writhe. He flops on the hanging, pathetically wriggling away from Colm’s touch as much as he can. The finger moves with him, back down his shuddering torso, swirling through his body hair. 

“We grab all of ya,” Colm whispers, and cups some of the meat of Arthur’s chest, feeling the weight of his right pectoral muscle, like he’s testing the ripeness of fruit. He squeezes, Arthur’s head lolling gasping somewhere between Colm’s legs, violently struggling to pull himself away. “Hand ya in…”

The hand slips past the broken buttons over Arthur’s bruised sternum. Grunting in exertion, Arthur kicks his bound feet, doesn’t care if he has to dislocate his own knees to escape, frenzied with his need to rid himself of Colm’s touch. He can’t see Colm’s face, can’t see anything but the dark of his jeans, inches from him, the flash of light visible past his legs when he swings.

There’s a distant chuckle, and Colm rips the rest of the buttons upwards and open, splitting Arthur’s union suit open from breastbone to navel in one violent tear. Blood and grime make the fabric heavy, hanging from his hips as limply as his arms, smacking wet into his shivering stomach, and Arthur’s powerless to do _anything_. Anything at all. Inconsolable, he heaves and hisses through his teeth, saliva running with blood around his mouth, close to sobbing as Colm’s unseen hand creeps over him, skittering like a palm-sized spider. 

All he manages is to further twist himself on his shackles, smudge dizziness through the nausea in his stomach, fast losing the last grating shreds of his oxygen. 

“And then we disappear!”

The hand withdraws.

Half naked and panting, Arthur spins pitifully in slow, swaying half-circles, the smell coming from his bared shoulder doing nothing to help the revulsion churning in his gut, a perpetual motion of gagging nausea. His underwear is open over his belly, bruised and drooping like a flour bag, like a hideous furred tumour, black and blue and pink. But any shame he’d feel otherwise barely registers, a grating noise all he can make as understanding starts to dawn through the smog in his head, Colm’s words finally making sense.

Colm has kidnapped him, to get to Dutch. The whole meeting was a trap, not for Dutch, but for Arthur himself. “You… Y-You mm. Met him to…”

“Grab you, Cowboy. Of course.”

Colm’s hands wave in front of him, swimming through the air, everywhere at once. “He gon’ be so mad. He gonna come ragin’ over here, with a whole lotta ya, and the law’ll be waitin’ for him.” His voice trails low again, a lurid kind of whisper, and the same hard object presses into the bruised skin of Arthur’s abdomen, the muzzle of the revolver trailing through his body hair. Grinning, sick and yellow, Colm pokes at the fat of his stomach, the distended bulge of his neglected bladder, delighting in the fear jumping in his abused muscles.

“You his best gun, Arthur,” he says, from somewhere around Arthur’s groin, deliberately prodding at open cuts, at the footprints burned into his skin from so many kicks, the fingerprints from how hard he’s been grabbed. “Oh how he’d _hate_ knowin’ what I could do to you…”

“F-Fuck you-” Arthur hisses. Blood bubbles wet from his nose, and he writhes, voice teetering on the edge of breaking into sobs. What little strength he had left is sapped with the random swinging, the pressure intensifying in his organs, seemingly dripping out of him with every second, hauled through him by gravity’s indomitable will, like all his innards are going to crush his head and splatter out of his eye sockets. His vision is black, spattered with red. “F-Fuck away fr’m- Fuck you!”

“Yeah,” Colm growls, probing the front sights to where the hair turns wiry in the V shape of Arthur’s hips, just covered by the union suit. Sweat runs down his torso, chest starting to convulse with how desperately he tries to fight. “He’d hate that the most.”

The underwear doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Thin cotton is stretched snug over Arthur’s groin, damp with sweat and run-off blood, everything clearly visible beneath. Colm pulls the fabric tight with his gun’s muzzle, and lets it smack painfully back to the tender skin, delighted with how Arthur jumps and heaves, how his breath is fast skidding into panic, not enough oxygen making it through the crushed cavities of his lungs.

Catching the light again, the revolver flips in Colm’s hand. “Oh Arthur,” he says, lilting, a sickening sultry murmur. “ _Arthur_ , I missed you.”

Colm smashes the stock into Arthur’s ribs. 

He yells, the shrill, desperate scream of an animal being roasted alive, and can almost feel the crunch of bone, skin splitting, pain splintering outwards with every strike of the weapon. It’s an indescribable agony, incandescent, coming again and again, over and over, slamming into his side until blood starts to pool around the back of his union suit, revolver stock splattering a fine mist over Colm’s hand, red stark against the white of his grinning teeth.

It lasts days, seconds, years, a violent black blur, Colm hitting him until Arthur can’t cry out anymore, can’t see, can’t even recognise when he loses control of his full bladder between blows, piss gushing down his chest to a dribbling pool on the floor underneath him, union suit soaked and steaming. He doesn’t notice it. Can’t. Dangling uselessly as Colm laughs, dripping piss, vomit, blood - like a hanged man, dead if not for the stubbornness of his heartbeat, leaking fluids and twitching long after the crowd has gone home.

Unconsciousness is a blessing.

He doesn’t wake again. Not for a long time.

  
  


*

  
  


Time passes like molasses sliding off a spoon. Achingly slow, Charles aware of every minute that ticks by, Arthurless, with no sign of him or Magpie anywhere in Lemoyne. And certainly not at Clemens Point.

It’s been three days.

There have been longer diversions, of course. Arthur has stayed out for more than this before. Once, he was tasked with heading out to find him, his absence stretching towards a fortnight that Arthur had genuinely missed, an honest accident full of odd jobs and small detours. This is nothing compared to that, and the rest of the camp seems wholly unconcerned, barely noticing at all until the food supplies start to dwindle because no one has gone hunting, and Dutch comments on the lack of camp chores being completed by lunchtime everyday.

They take him for granted. Charles has long suspected it, but it’s plain to see once he really starts to look.

Still, it bothers him. Niggles, like a splinter he can’t dig out, playing on his conscience as he tries to preoccupy himself around the camp, going out to hunt, pick herbs, groom the horses, fetch more wood, anything he can do to mind the time. It helps to keep busy.

When he stops, he sees Arthur. Filling the gaps around the clearing with his presence. He’s playing with Cain on the beach, sitting on the washed-up log by the southern shore to sketch, catching tiny rock bass off the jetty with childlike excitement, singing around the campfire though he doesn’t know the words, playing poker in the evening, grooming Magpie as the sun sets and telling her about his day. Trying to be inconspicuous as he feeds her and Taima extra mints.

Sneaking a succinct kiss from Charles behind his wagon before they say goodnight.

Charles’ intuition is rarely wrong. It bothers him.

“Dutch?”

Feet propped up on a small stool in front of him, Dutch is lounging on the chair outside his tent, eyes fixed down on his book. It’s cool in the shade, a welcome respite from the sun. He doesn’t look up, the thin muscle of his cheek tightening as he sets his teeth together, moustache pulled a millimetre upwards. “I’m sure you can see I’m busy, Mister Smith.

Charles watches him turn the page, licking his fingertip to grip the paper. Because turning a page like a normal person was too much to ask, apparently. “Clearly,” Charles says, blank tone of voice sounding all the more derisive for the sincere and abject lack of sarcasm in it, purposefully not allowing any to show through. “It will only take a moment.”

With a maudlin sigh, Dutch closes the book around his fingers, marking his place, and finally looks up at Charles, regarding him with weary impatience. His dark eyes are stone. “If you wish to go out hunting or take on extra guard shifts, I’ve told you before you don’t need to ask.”

“I remember,” Charles says, and purses his lips for a second before he answers, composing the words like libretto, rehearsing what he needs to say. “Where did Arthur say he was going?”

“Arthur?”

“Arthur.”

“He didn’t.”

Charles stares, blank. “He didn’t?”

“Didn’t meet back up with us after the meeting. How should I know where he is?”

Charles stares again, dumbfounded, expression showing no sign of the mechanics working in his head, the cogs and gears ticking into realisation, grains of sand through an hourglass. “You told Hosea he’d be back by now,” he says, tightly controlled. “That he said he had an errand to run. How can you know that if you didn’t see him?”

Dutch looks curiously up at him, tilts his head. Scrutinising. He uncrosses his legs, and leans slightly forward in his seat, regarding Charles as if he’s trying to crack a safe, twirling the dial, listening. Intently focused on his slow fingers, the click of some hidden inner working, waiting for the correct combination which, in Charles, Dutch hasn’t yet unlocked. His stare is held firm; Charles doesn’t falter. 

“Your tone’s taken a turn toward the accusing, Mister Smith,” Dutch says, with the same air of false pleasantness as a conductor on a runaway train, trying to keep the passengers in their seats as they hurtle suicidally towards the station with no brakes and a very dead engine driver. His head tilts again, tongue briefly wetting his lips beneath his moustache. “I know ‘cause I know Arthur.”

There’s a minute clench in Charles’ jaw. Dutch continues, brandishing a gesturing hand. “I know the pair of you have become...close these past few months-”

Months. A few of them. Barely any time at all.

“-I see that. And I am sure that you do consider Arthur your friend, a dear one even, but - and _do_ forgive my...crudeness, Mister Smith, I dislike being quite so blunt - I known him a whole lot longer than you.”

It’s harsh, and raises his hackles, but even Charles can’t deny the truth of it. Most of them have known Arthur much longer than he has. 

The comment swells between them, an ugly weight. Charles’ nostrils flare, and he berates himself for the lack of composure. Foolish. Like he’s just left his king exposed on the chessboard, and as expected, Dutch seizes the check as a victory, leaning slightly back. No longer on the offensive. 

“Arthur’s a wayfaring soul,” he explains, gesturing widely with his book. “I known him more than twenty years. Can’t tell you how many times he’s wandered off. Like a mutt chasin’ rabbits. You get used to it.” 

With a hollow chuckle, as if delighting in some inside joke that Charles couldn’t possibly understand, he reclines in his chair, gaze lazily shifting back up. “If that is all, Mister Smith, will you excuse me? I really am quite busy.”

“Of course,” Charles says, placating, as devoid of emotion as before, voice quieter. 

He changes his strategy. Protects his vulnerable king. “I simply...wanted to volunteer, if you were looking to send someone to find him. I’m the best tracker here.”

Dutch chuckles again, a flourish of breath, legs now spread as if to take up twice as much room. “That you are,” he agrees, amused, clapping his free hand on his knee. “But, you are overreacting, my friend, I assure you. That boy has gone walkabout plenty of times before and no doubt will continue ‘til his dyin’ day. Ain’t no cause for concern.”

“Right,” Charles says, and obviously doesn’t sound as convinced as he attempts to, because Dutch sighs, comically loud, as if exasperated by the continuous presence of an overly-friendly wasp, buzzing around his ears.

“If there was any hint he - or _any_ of you - was in some kind of danger, do you not think I’d be handling it?” He leans forward again, bristling. “I all but _raised_ Arthur. Have I not given you that impression? That I would die for any one of you here? For your safety? That I would gladly lie down in my grave to keep any one of you safe?” Gesturing with his book, Dutch’s voice wavers in a practised tremolo, cracking slightly in his throat. He’s quieter then, “You truly think so little of me, Charles?”

Staring for another moment more, Charles dips his chin. A half inch movement at best. Allows Dutch another check. Another small victory. “Of course not,” he says, and finally lets his gaze drop. “I...apologise, Dutch. You’ve known him longer than I have, like you said.”

“Just a couple decades,” Dutch says, with a dry chuckle. “I appreciate you offerin’ yourself for Arthur’s sake, but I _assure_ you, there ain’t no need. Now do excuse me, Mister Smith, I got a lot to do.” He flashes a smile up at Charles. Bites it into nothing a second later, like tearing a thread with his teeth.

Charles nods, shallow and still as he considers his next move. He’s not sure he’d be very good at chess. It seems like the sort of thing Dutch would enjoy. A game of logic, of wit and strategy, and from the sounds of it, very little fun.

He steps back from the shade of Dutch’s tent, intending to leave, and the westward sun sets him instantly aflame, like a torch to a pagan altar, erupting in gold, a gilt and gorgeous statue bathed in heavenward light. Dutch’s face is swallowed by the glare.

“I’ll make sure to get to know him better from now on,” Charles says, and turns away before he can see Dutch’s reaction, the slightest smile haunting his face, like a knife mark in unbaked dough. Checkmate.

 

There’s a few chores to be done, and Charles meets John behind one of the wagons, sharing a silent hour with him while they work on a wheel, replacing a splintered spoke. They don’t often speak beyond the job at hand or the next smoke, not having had much chance to get to know one another besides working. 

Lacking their own relationship, Charles sees John through Arthur’s eyes, unable to help feeling Arthur’s sense of abandonment, of hurt, of deep knotted disapproval at John’s treatment of Abigail and young Jack. When Arthur talks about it, there’s something so very close to resentment there, wrapped up in the pain, as if some part of him longs for the chance John willfully squanders, but it’s a chapter of Arthur’s story Charles hasn’t been read yet, lacking the knowledge to join the dots. All he has is the loss he felt, the betrayal he still carries from the day John left.

It’s difficult not to let it affect his view of the man. But, John, like Arthur, is a creature of conflict, who carries his own trauma through life in his own way, just as Charles does himself. There’s a good man beneath the bite. Immature, but clearly Arthur’s brother, if only by circumstance rather than blood.

So, Charles offers him a cigarette, when the shadows start to lengthen further with the afternoon, taking their break and looking out across the still lake water, and mumbles his thanks when John lights them both, deciding it can’t hurt to share what he knows. Gain an ally. “Can I ask you something?”

John looks at him with mild surprise, as if never having heard him speak, smoke thick as he exhales. “...Sure?”

“Do you know where Dutch was meant to meet Colm O’Driscoll?”

“No… Why?”

Taking a drag, Charles hesitates. The lake water laps at the sand, foaming white. “Arthur didn’t meet Dutch afterwards.”

The frown John gives him is reassuring, somehow. He looks back out across the lake, shifting his weight, voice wheezing in his throat with the smoke. “Probably found a dog to befriend,” he says dismissively, flicking excess ash from the end of his cigarette. “Bastard’s always fuckin’ off. Drawin’ shit in his journal. S’fine when _he_ does it, of course.”

Charles doesn’t hesitate. “And I was sure he was just being an asshole when he called you dumb as rocks.”

“Ha,” John snaps, scar tissue tight across his face as he scowls.

They smoke in silence for a few minutes more, Charles focusing on the warmth of the sun, a constant in the midst of his spinning thoughts, ticking around his head like clockwork.

Perhaps he is just overreacting. Perhaps his feelings for Arthur are clouding his judgement, and Arthur will amble back into Clemens Point the next day, wondering what all the fuss is about, with several new drawings to show him, several tales to tell of his adventures, the colourful people he’s met - be they slave catchers, animal tamers, palaeontologists, blind fortune tellers, a whole carnival troupe of all of the above.

“Y’think somethin’ happened to him?”

Charles huffs. “I think...it’s an odd coincidence. Arthur disappears during a meeting with Colm O’Driscoll, and is not where he said he’d be afterwards.”

“I guess… He ain’t one to go back on his word lightly.”

John scratches his stubble where his scars bisect his cheek. Shifts his weight again, boots leaving impressions in the sand as he shuffles. “You ask Dutch?”

“Said I was overreacting.”

“...And Dutch didn’t see him after?”

“Dutch told Hosea he was running an errand.”

His gaze flicks across to John. Sticks. “It was a lie,” he says blankly. “He didn’t see him. Told me earlier. No one has.”

“I… I dunno.”

Voice thick with smoke, John shrugs, clearly unconvinced by his own dismissal. “It’s uh… If Dutch says it ain’t nothin’, then…”

“Then it’s probably nothing,” Charles says, and takes one last drag before crushing the cigarette stub beneath his toe, embedding it in the wet sand.

When John looks at him, he’s still frowning, but Charles can’t push any harder. Again, he changes strategy. “I just wondered. See you later,” he says, and makes to leave.

“I uh- I heard it was Pearson’s idea, the meeting. He’d probably know where they was headin’.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure,” John mumbles, and lets him go, frowning out over the water, clouded with smoke.

  
  


*

  
  


“Hey, sugar. You wanna smoke?”

The body on the floor doesn’t move. Not deliberately. Every muscle is trembling, racked with shivers, curled around his ruined shoulder, but it’s without conscious thought, nervous system in overdrive trying to control the fever licking inside him.

Smoke drifts through the still cellar, disturbed by the laughter. “I can’t hear you, Cowboy.” A heavy thud, spurs jingling with the force of the kick. Squeezed breath. More laughter.

“Well, seein’ as I’m a generous feller…”

Cigarette ash lands on mottled, sweating skin, where one hand is gripping the opposite elbow, trying to calm the convulsive shivering, holding himself together. The stub is pressed firm to the arm, hissing as it glows and devours itself, eating at the pale flesh in a raw red burn. There are several already, dotted in a body-wide constellation, tiny welts to punish exposed skin.

Again, the body doesn’t move.

“...He was more fun when he fought back.”

“Aye. Look at ‘im, he’ll be dead in a couple days. Fever’s gonna take ‘im.”

“Shame. He’ll miss the show when Van der Linde gets here.”

Laughter, dry and echoing.

“Y’all imagine Van der Linde’s face when he comes ragin’ in and finds his man already moulderin’ in his grave. Bless his heart.”

Again laughter. Arthur clenches his eyes shut. 

“Hey, hey- Did y’all hear Colm beat ‘im so bad-”

“He went an’ pissed himself, I know. Feckin’ hell.”

“Sorry bastard.”

“I knew a feller once- Army feller. Said they used to beat fellers - deserters and savages, y’know - ‘til he shat his guts out, and wet hisself besides. Like a contest who could burst ‘em quickest. It degrades ‘em, see. They resist less once they’s swimmin’ in their own cold piss.”

“It almost ain’t funny.”

“Aye. _Almost_.”

Raucous laughter. 

Thoughts are elusive. Intangible. He grasps for them, can’t hold them long enough to understand. His burnt skin tingles. Sweat drips past his temples.

Dutch is in danger. Walking into a trap.

“Ah, let’s get. Smells bad enough to gag a maggot in here.”

“We gon’ hang him back up?”

“Nah, let the others do it later. Feller’s heavy. And stinks. He ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

He needs to warn Dutch. Dutch is in danger. He has to warn him. Warn Dutch. It’s a trap. Everyone will be killed or caught. Has to warn them. Has to warn Dutch.

Blood bubbles weakly beneath his nose, dead eyes unseeing, spattered with the red of broken vessels, like scattered poppies in a cornfield. The pain keeps him still, and he sleeps.

  
  


*

  
  


Charles sleeps until just before first light. 

The hazy dark still lingers as he packs Taima’s saddlebags, clinging to the paling sky in wisps of cloud, stripes of sunrise, pink peeping from the near arrival of wan dawn. It’s only him and the dozing horses yet awake, too early even for the birds and the morning insects, the chill of night making the hairs on his arms stand up, fastening the cinch straps under Taima’s belly, ensuring she’s ready for a long ride.

She flicks her tail, eager to get working, at her happiest when given a job to do. Taima is a generous mare. Always giving.

When he was a child, Charles’ mother had talked about values. Generosity, kinship, fortitude, and wisdom. To share freely, to give of yourself, is to belong, and be in harmony with the world around you. It hadn’t meant much to a child. _‘What you give away, you keep. What you keep, you lose.’_

It means a lot as an adult, even just as a memory, a reconfigured approximation of her voice, long forgotten, but still somehow with him so many years later. Sometimes, he wonders how different his life would be, if she were still alive. Would she be proud of who he is?

Probably not.

Charles huffs, humourless, unable to muster even the wry impression of a smile. Perhaps then, she could be proud of what he still values, how he tries to live, even if not the location he’s ended up in. He’s not sure he’s proud of that himself.

But he holds his mother’s words close. The concept of family isn’t limited to blood, for her people. Kinship is extended to all, and family is a measure of wealth. Generosity extends to all people.

He glances back around the sleeping camp. Another reconfigured approximation. This time of a family. It’s not quite the right word to describe the gang, but the closest one there is. They aren’t related by blood, but they share something Charles needs to protect as if they were. To keep safe. And Arthur is the heart of it. There’s little point understating it anymore. Arthur is the colour to everything he has built here, and Charles will give of himself to keep him whole.

Even if he returns within the day, Arthur laughing at him for worrying all the way home, he would rather give the time and effort, just in case.

“John says you’re disobeyin’ orders, Mister Smith.”

The voice is surprising in the silence of pre-dawn. Mrs Adler - Sadie - gently touches Taima’s nose, walking up to lean on the hitching post where she’s tethered. Charles looks up at her across Taima’s flank, checking her tack over. Sleep is heavy in her posture, underdressed since it’s still effectively still night. A jacket covers her drawers and chemise, held closed around her like a blanket.

“Morning,” Charles replies, deliberately evasive, and goes back to Taima’s saddle, adjusting the furred bison hide that sits between the leather and her back. “You’re up early.”

“As are you. Ain’t even light.”

Peeking up over Taima’s crest, Charles searches Sadie’s weary face for a long moment. They haven’t had much chance to get to know one another either, much like him and John, but again, Charles sees someone he can trust in her. A good woman, facing a terrible and heavy grief. Fierce as a mountain lion, but with a soft heart. He sighs, tugs Taima’s stirrup leather, and moves back around the hitching post. “I’m following a hunch.”

Sadie reads his expression in turn, her bare toes curled in the grass. Among different company, it might be seen as improper to be so undressed, but Charles has never spared much respect for the white man’s inflated sense of impropriety. Everyone has toes, and legs, and a breast. Why should Sadie hide hers? Ridiculous.

“My Jake, he used to say good instincts tell you what to do long before your head’s figured it out,” she says, resting against the post. The dying night gives the light a warm, syrup quality, the slight blush of sunrise worrying the eastern horizon behind them, a swell of peach blossom harrying the remnant dark. Sadie huffs, cheek pulled as if by a string, memory caught in her eyes. “Said he always knew he was gonna end up marryin’ me. Just knew.”

Charles stands beside her, looking out at Flat Iron Lake past the tents, the oak tree. The water shimmers with the fading stars, like a thousand jewels, swirling blue and pale, ribbons of colour and light. He doesn’t reply, doesn’t feel like his commentary is necessary, comfortable in the silence before the world wakes.

“Hunches ain’t often wrong,” she adds eventually, crossing her arms over her chest to keep her hands warm, fingers tucked in her armpits.

“I’m hoping this one is.”

“Arthur?”

“Mhm.”

Again, Sadie is silent. Charles considers excusing himself, eager to leave before the dawn breaks, but after a moment, she speaks again, quiet like rustling fabric. “My Jake also used to say...love is instinct. Ain’t no logic in love. You know or you don’t. He’d say to me, ‘Loving you takes no brains, but it’s the smartest thing I ever done.’”

Expressionless, Charles can only stare across at her, stunned for a second by the implication. Exactly what she isn’t saying. 

She _knows_. Maybe he and Arthur haven’t been as discreet as they’d hoped. So, he smiles, huffing his understated laugh. Little point in denying it. “A wise man,” he murmurs, and catches how Sadie’s cheeks round with her smile, delighting in the unspoken confirmation, and the flash of affection it brings between them.

“Yeah. Yeah he was.”

Charles unhitches Taima’s reins, looping them up over the horn of her saddle. With one last check of his supplies, he moves to her left side, and mounts, settling his boots in the stirrups as she stretches her neck down into the contact, chewing the bit in her mouth. 

“We’ll cover for you here,” Sadie says, turning to face Taima as she backs from the hitching post, Charles taking up the reins.

“Thanks.”

“I hope he’s safe. He’s a good man. You’re...good for each other.”

A gentle huff, Charles chuckles despite his four-day-old sense of unease, the veil of anxiety that’s settled over him. “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

She smiles, weak and slight like the promise of sunrise on the horizon, but genuine, watching Taima amble towards the treeline, only heading back towards bed when her spotted coat has disappeared from sight.

 

Pearson hadn’t been able to give him an exact location, only that the meeting would take place on the plains of the Heartlands, near the rundown oil derrick. But it’s enough for Charles, even several days behind Arthur. He’s sure he can pick up some kind of trail, find some clue. Or at least, rule out anything untoward.

Taima settles into an easy lope, relaxing into the rhythm of her long stride. The cool air is welcome, a misty curtain of pre-dawn hanging low over Scarlett Meadows like a cloud of breath across the surface of a mirror. Red earth, dry with dust, stretches between the clumps of trees like a huge bedspread, furred with wildflowers drawn out by the warm weather. Without the sun to brighten the landscape, there’s a purplish haze over everything, like an over-glazed photograph, still and silent for just a while before the birds begin to wake.

They cross Dewberry Creek as the sun finally breaks fully free of the horizon, and New Hanover is bathed in slick gold light, spreading out from Roanoke Ridge. The grass awakens, glistening with new colour, the Emerald Ranch windmill catching the sunlight and shimmering in the distance to the northeast. Sitting squat by its side is the main barn, a great green loaf just visible past the undulating hills that bracket the floodplain, and Charles peels off to the north before the land flattens out, following the road up into the Heartlands as morning blooms.

There aren’t any obvious tracks as Taima continues, climbing the ridges and slopes with ease in long looping curves. Stagecoaches, carriages, riders of all kinds use the road, and it’s been so long since Dutch’s party, presumably, came this way, that any trail is long muddied, scattered with the dust.

Still, Charles keeps on, eager to stay ahead of the sun if he can. Riding out at midday at this time of year is doable, but not ideal. Particularly since he has no real idea where he’s heading.

He follows the road, alone in the midst of endless miles of agricultural land, a pastiche counterpane miles across, spread out to the eastern forests and far to the north, almost familiar by now. As the track climbs, skirting the contours of the ridge overlooking Flat Iron Lake, the marsh foliage of Scarlett Meadows is all but forgotten, replaced by buffalograss, sedge, wild rye and sage, great spikes of yucca clinging to the hillsides as cliffs surge up towards the sun, rock parched and pale.

It’s the same picture as when they’d hunted the bison, and yet different at the same time, minute details having changed with the new season. Summer is the great provider, nature’s bounty, and it’s obvious in every direction, humming in the fabric of the earth, the weft and weave of the land itself.

The cacti are in fruit, and wildflowers are dots of colour in great tangled swathes with the forbs and weeds - bright yellow sunflowers, cinquefoil and black-eyed susan, cheerful purple lobelia, bergamot, prairie clover, blue aster, white yarrow, a kaleidoscope of busy pigment and texture. Berries are abundant; the seeding grasses are tall and reaching, swaying like the shimmer of heat on the horizon, interrupted by the prairie dog mounds that litter the hillsides, chipmunks and kangaroo rats scampering through cover, avoiding the eyes of soaring falcons, hawks, the perching shrikes with ready thorns.

It’s the time of plenty, and even in the early morning, the air is alive with butterflies, bees, dragonflies, rousing before the lizards come out to bask in the sun.

Arthur would love it.

Absently Charles scans ahead as they ride on, sure he’d be able to see Magpie’s distinctive coat even from a distance. For all the colours in the prairie at this time of year, black and white are rare amongst them. 

The road shifts towards the west, air cooler with the altitude, and Twin Stack Pass looms below in the distance, bleached castle walls tumbling with age. It’s another reminder of the day they’d shared on the plains, how Arthur had looked while they were riding together at full gallop, like he was an eagle, whose pinions had been clipped for his entire life, and only then was he first discovering what it felt like to fly.

He was beautiful. Still is. Radiant in Charles’ mind, as he’d looked at the fallen bison, touched his crown with such gentle respect, as he’d listened to every word Charles said, every story he’d told about his mother and her people, their culture and customs. He’d asked questions, hesitant with his desire to be polite, always trying to understand, always eager to know more, even when it’s a subject he can’t personally relate to. It was important to Charles, and that had made it important to Arthur.

Just as beautiful too after he’d shot the poacher, a syllable away from another epithet, another breath intended to tear at Charles’ humanity, spat from a mouth that gaped in death a second later. There was blood on them both, sweat, wet adrenaline, the dangerous competence with which Arthur kills like a drug to him, and the same in reverse - Arthur’s expression after Charles had dispatched the first man, shotgun kicking his shoulder, a mix of thrill and admiration, shock, but no horror.

Achingly beautiful; all of him. His scrunched-up nose with the scar on the side, his blemished chin with the patch where his stubble never grows. Hands that are bitten around the nail beds, but gentle in everything they do, freckled like his cheeks are, like his chest and back. Eyes like aquamarine, like periwinkle flowers, like the nebulous stars before night’s dark overwhelms, sparkling pale and magnificent.

Everything in Arthur’s life has been so tightly controlled, so manufactured, and yet his mind is so curious, so clever, seeing beauty and meaning in things Charles doesn’t notice, shy and soft and stronger than anyone he’s ever known.

Somewhere in the depths of him, Charles knows he’s falling in love. Sadie was right. He hasn’t voiced it, but he knows it’s true, something he has never experienced and yet recognises all the same. Is it always so powerful? So thrilling and terrifying all at once?

How he longs to take Arthur up on that offer; to take a few days out and be with each other, revel in each other, fall into each other and make up for every want they have to keep hidden, every urge they can’t act on. Maybe he’ll manage to convince Arthur of his worth to him, how much he cares for him if only for a few days, stare down the prowling doubt within him and smother it with as much love as Charles can give, keep it blissfully quiet for long enough to worship every perfect inch of him, pay tribute at the altar of his body, pledge to him his own for him to do with as he will. Make him believe in his own inherent goodness, his attractiveness, everything he doubts in himself.

Hell. Whatever Arthur wants, needs, he’d give it.

He’d been close, that day in the forest, hunting the buck - unable to hold back, allowing himself to touch, to press into him, to show some of the desire he feels, close to throwing the bow aside and pinning him to the dappled ground, beg him to allow his roaming hands, allow him more than just heated kisses, beg to covet and revere and honour him as he so wholly deserves. Arthur has no idea what he does to him. How much he _feels_.

Charles swallows, hot in his cheeks and knowing it isn’t just the warm weather. He’s been made into a perfect fool, and it’s little consolation to know he’s far from the first man to be thoroughly laid low by the desires of his own heart.

Before the road starts to descend towards the pass, there are scuff marks in the dirt. Taima slows, taking the opportunity to stretch out while Charles inspects the tracks, leaning over her side.

Three horses left the road ahead. Multiple hoof tracks veer from the path and off to the left. He looks up, scanning the land ahead. A stretch of scrub climbs further, dense with plantlife, before dropping away out of sight, presumably overlooking the plains below.

Arthur was meant to be ‘protection’. If he was going to set up a sniping position, where better to do it?

Charles picks up his reins, urging Taima on through the brush, avoiding the worst of the prickly pear and pincushion cacti, the crumbling rock, dirt loose beneath her hooves. The tracks aren’t obvious, but he can see when three sets of hooves becomes one, the lone rider continuing on up towards the crest of the cliff.

It’s a tricky climb, meandering around and back and up even further, Taima picking her way through the jungle of foliage, only snorting her displeasure when a barbed yucca snags in her feathers. She kicks it, and Charles clicks his tongue, reassuring her forwards.

Finally the land spills up and over, and evens out into a short plateau, a high perch above the barren prairie. The oil derrick is a black tower in the centre, bent over as if awkwardly sat on by some ancient giant, the only feature in a sea of golden green scrubland. It’s a natural overlook, providing a vast and beautiful view of the Heartlands, reaching in all directions to greet the brightening sky.

He dismounts a distance from the edge, letting Taima take a break while he tries to follow the tracks, picking their path through the tall grasses, the low-growing cacti. A horse had definitely come this way, and stopped, left to wander and graze, distinct hoofprints imprinted in the dry earth, dust blown over them in the days that followed.

Charles crouches, tracing a horseshoe shaped impression. Then, not a few feet away, a footprint, much shallower than the hooves, but there. Arthur’s ghost, dismounting Magpie. It has to be.

The prints crowd, heels and toes smudged together by multiple steps, scattered by the breeze so high on the cliff, but legible still, and Charles follows the disturbed earth in a low stoop, noticing the scattered pebbles, a broken stem or two, treading a path towards the outcrop’s edge.

A vulture takes flight as he approaches, picking at a mangled coyote corpse, mostly bones and nearly falling off the precipice, as if dropped in an aerial tussle by its original killer, and passed through several talons since. Flies buzz in what’s left of the flesh, and Charles breathes, taking the few steps out onto the bare rock, eyes scanning.

A flash of colour catches his attention. Beneath his feet is a bright, dark splatter, thick as tar, reflecting the early sun. He crouches. It’s a streak of blood. Again he glances to the dead coyote a few yards away, innards strewn across the dusty rock. It’s possible. But there’s no other blood around the corpse, which means it likely wasn’t bleeding when it got there. No heartbeat to put blood flow under pressure. Which suggests…

He straightens up, looks around again. 

An object distracts him. It’s lying nearby, mostly hidden beneath the round pads of a prickly pear cluster, caught in the dense growth bordering the rock. As he nears it, he can see what it is, stooping again to release it from the cactus’ prison, snaking his hand through the maze of thorns, its ripening fruit like a bunch of scarlet balloons.

It’s a hat. “Shit.”

The worn black leather is instantly recognisable, scuffed to a lighter brown around the creases. Cord is tied around the crown, fraying at the ends, the lining shabby and faded from years of wear, shaped perfectly to Arthur’s head. He never leaves his hat. No matter what, Arthur always goes back for his hat.

Charles pulls it from the thorns, cradling it to his chest, and again stands up, searching the rest of the outcrop, as if Arthur could be hiding behind a clump of clover, waiting to jump out and surprise him. To laugh at the look of grim apprehension on his face, smooth out the lines between his brows with the pad of his thumb, fondly warning him he’ll get wrinkles if he frowns too much, and head home with him, hand in hand.

There’s nothing. Of course there isn’t. Nothing but the flap and flutter of a solitary sparrow, flitting between the stems of switchgrass, and the screeching call of a hawk, somewhere in the far distance.

Charles holds the hat to his heart, and moves on.

Another drop of blood is smeared in the dust further from the cliff edge, descending steeply, and crowded with more footprints. More than one person. The carpet grass is disturbed further on, flattened, trampled and pulled in clumps, as if rucked up beneath someone’s boots. It continues, a stuttering trail of lone footprints, scuffs in the dust, drag marks - just like in the Braithwaite cornfield, broken furrows through the dirt. Arthur’s heels.

He whistles for Taima, and remounts, Arthur’s hat fixed to her saddle.

The trail leads him back down to the road. It’s a muddle of hoofprints and carriage tracks, impossible to follow, except for the odd spot of darkened earth every fifty feet or so, solitary drops of blood, baked into the dust. Whoever it belongs to was moving while bleeding, a slow faucet-like leak, spattered from height.

Sighing, Charles touches the hat, thumbs the frayed rope. It might not even be Arthur. Anyone could have been injured in the days since he passed through this way. Anyone could have taken the same road. The hat could be a coincidence, lost by mistake.

He gees Taima up into canter.

As the morning soars behind them, they pass through the Twin Stacks, the pillars dimpled and pitted like they’re the faces of giants, with sunken eyes and crumbling features, turned towards the sun. The spots of blood continue, dropped into the earth and baking as the heat rises, near invisible.

It’s not much, but it’s the best lead he has.

In truth, his only lead.

  
  


*

  
  


Lead lodges in his chest. They rehang him. Unconsciousness envelops within seconds, and over the course of the next hours, he wakes in feverish bursts, fighting the paralysis of sleep with the little adrenaline he has left.

One thought is all that gets through, brain drowned in a deafening sea of blood, bursting at the seams of his skull and leaking from every orifice. He must warn Dutch.

It’s light at some indeterminate point in time, bright around the edges of his vision, spotty and unfocused. The next time, the light is gone. And each time he wakes, the battle starts again, desperate to keep his consciousness for more than a few moments. His breath ratchets with the horror of awareness, senses struggling to process what little they can through the fog, and when he wakes enough to feel the pain, his body flicks quickly into panic, and the resulting lack of oxygen puts him to sleep again.

Dutch is in danger.

His thigh muscle jerks in spasm. The shackles creak, and he swings lamely side-to-side. Familiarly nauseating. There’s been nothing in his stomach for days, but he still vomits every so often, retching until his tears are blood. Familiar. Oddly predictable.

Again he twitches, and he gasps to consciousness. Clings to it, desperate.

Gingerly, the dark swirling, he tries to find his hands. His left is unresponsive, but the right swims into view, the wrong way up and blurring red, every movement out of sync with his brain. He grabs for the air.

The darkness in his head throbs, pulls at him. Arthur breathes, as deeply as he can with his lungs crushed, and wheezes on the exhale, forcing his eyes to stay open.

All he can see is some kind of surface to his right, a workbench perhaps. It shifts and distorts as he tries to focus, and it could just be a trick of the low light, his abused eyes, but something metallic seems to flash on top of it.

His hand feels far off, pounding and cold, but he reaches to the bench, using the swinging motion of the binding around his ankles to get closer. The momentum is sickening, dizziness swirling in his gut, threatening to spill over into more nausea, but finally his fingers close on the object, dragging it clumsily into his hand.

He pants, choked and rattling, still for several minutes as he fights to keep himself awake. It’s the most lucidity he’s felt in what could be weeks; he battles to keep hold of it.

The object is a file, he decides, metal and sharp, caked in fine orange flecks of rust he can’t see, barely able to make out his hand half a foot in front of him, to close his fingers properly on the shaft. If he could reach his shackles- Maybe-

With a pained grunt, he reaches up, whole body trembling with the effort. The metal cuts into his ankles, reopening scabbed wounds, fighting gravity to find the lock between his feet, like trying to catch the sea in a teacup. He gives up, heaving.

Again he tries, folding himself in half to stab blindly at the iron between his feet, probing for a hole, scraping the file along whatever surface he can find. Finally, the sharp tip judders into the catch point and he jams it forward, twisting.

A soft click, and the shackles open. 

He hits the ground with a whimper, what little breath he has knocked out of him, and he curls over on his only tangible side, bringing up his aching knees, rubbing absently at the spasming muscles of his thighs. For as long as it takes for his lungs to recover, he lies on the stone, just breathing, saliva pooling from his open mouth to the cellar floor.

It’s another age before he can move, and smear some clarity into his vision with the back of his hand rubbing at his eyes, though it’s only enough to see the vague impression of four walls around him. There’s no detail, only contrast, a blurry interpretation of colour and shape. A candle is lit on the workbench, barely an inch left to burn, the sides and holder caked in days of wax, and as he watches, the flame flickers, highlighting the dust motes in the air around it, bouncing chaotically off the stone. He squints, reaches for the workbench’s leg, and uses it to haul himself upright, the world spinning over itself to settle the right way up, for the first time in what could be years.

Nausea swells, and Arthur pants, trying to hold it back as his head swims. Picking up his knees on the floor, he ducks his head between his legs as much as his abused neck muscles can allow, shuts his eyes, and waits.

As he breathes, the same thought comes back to him. Dutch. Dutch is walking into a trap. He’s got no time to waste. Every lost minute could mean Dutch’s death. Hosea’s. All of them.

There’s something around his neck, he realises, when the room settles into a finite position, with the floor beneath him and the ceiling above. It’s a crude split sack, tied around his head like a baby’s bonnet, and Arthur rips it away from himself, throwing it to the corner as he tries to get up, using the workbench to balance.

He stumbles, catching himself on a chair tucked under the bench, hastily sitting down to catch his breath again. His left arm is leaden. Dimly, he knows he’s been shot. And even more dimly, he knows the smell of infection. There’s not much he can do. Not much he can think to do. Cauterising the wound is useless. If there’s shot in the flesh, there’s no way he can get it out. Can barely see the stained surface in front of him let alone perform any kind of first aid on himself. He’s wasting time.

A bottle of whiskey is on the bench too, opened and half empty. His hand trembles as he picks it up and pours the rest of the contents over his left shoulder with a hiss of pain, dousing the wound, spilling more liquid down his front. It’s deep, and he can’t turn his head enough to look at it properly, only able to see a reeking black mass in his peripheral vision where his shoulder once was, surrounding skin so bruised it’s indistinguishable from the wound itself. Scraps of his union suit cling in the shot, and pull whenever he tries to move, but once the alcohol is gone, still he forces himself to keep going, keep his eyes open. Keep breathing.

Dutch needs him. He has to warn him. He can die afterwards.

“Oh, shut your hole!”

His breath hitches. Clumsy, he stumbles from the chair to the opposite wall, ankles barely taking his own sudden weight. He falls to the stone, and a hatch clatters open above him, a shaft of light appearing and illuminating the cellar stairwell, glinting off the iron shackles suspended from a chain and hook on the ceiling, shining with the dull slick of blood. His head spins.

“I don’t wanna go to Mexico,” the voice continues, accent thick. Boots thud on the first step, and stop. “I wanna go home. Home!”

Arthur’s left side screams at him, heavy and wet. He’s only got one arm. It’s like his brain can’t process the loss, and is wading unbalanced without half the body it’s in charge of, every muscle off-centre and struggling to make up for the lack of his left torso. And if everything could stop moving, that’d be helpful. Even the footsteps seem to swim in his head, echoing, bouncing too loud in the cavernous space where there once was a brain, the rotting juices having long seeped out of his nose and eye sockets.

“Ugh. Hold on, I’ll be back in a minute. Gotta see if Sleepin’ Beauty’s still kickin’.”

The footsteps start again, and orange fills the cellar, bobbing lantern light careening closer like the lamp of a runaway train. Fresh air trails with it, a plume of thin, breathable oxygen, cutting through the thick mired stench of vomit and urine beneath the ground. 

Arthur squints. Holds his breath.

“What the Hell?”

Moving forward, the O’Driscoll holds his lantern to the empty cellar wall, highlighting the empty shackles, the meat hook they’re hanging on. The floor is slick with various bodily fluids, writhing in the moving light, like maggots digging into a corpse and just as revolting.

Arthur crashes forward. With one arm, he tackles the man, locking his elbow under a reaching chin and squeezing with all he has, crushing his neck within the vice of every last vestige of his energy. The O’Driscoll writhes, bucking like an unbacked stallion. Nails dig into Arthur’s arm, fighting for his life, and the lantern clatters to the stone, weeping oil.

“Just- Fucking-” He snarls, spittle covering the O’Driscoll’s ear. They slip together, four legs on the stinking floor, thrashing as rams in rut. “ _Die_ -”

Another surge of effort, Arthur panting like an animal, and the man finally loses his fight, sinking limply in Arthur’s locked arm like a deflating balloon. His knees hit the floor. 

Arthur stumbles backwards, and only just manages to turn in time, catching himself against the wall and vomiting a stomachful of bile on the floor. It spatters against his bare feet, and he sinks to his knees, unable to stay standing with how hard he’s shaking, every muscle twitching, like there’s a flock of sparrows perching all along his spine, pecking at all the branches of his nerves.

He grunts his breath. Hunched over on himself like a pale slab of undercooked meat, he huddles on the floor in the pool of his own stomach acid, waiting for the swell of sickness to pass, the room to stop swirling like it’s water running down a drain. His breath slows.

Pulling up a piece of his sleeve, he wipes his mouth and the sweat dripping down his forehead, the tears, the blood bubbling once more from his nose, and starts the agonising process of trying to stand once again, shaking from head to numb toes.

More time wasted. He has to keep moving.

The unconscious O’Driscoll has three knives in his belt, light and thin, the sort of thing Charles keeps handy-

Charles. Just the thought of him makes Arthur falter. Will he be coming too? Walking into Colm’s trap? It seems so long since he last saw him. What if that was the last time, and Arthur didn’t even know? Didn’t say a proper goodbye? Didn’t ever tell him how much he lov-

Panic surges. From an adrenaline-muffled simmer to a roar in a split second, and he’s got to get out. Needs to leave, to never look back. The cellar reeks. He’s wet, filthy, can barely see. Colm’s fingers still trail down his belly, unbutton his underwear- There’s so many hands on him, fingers, boots. He can’t see whose they are, can’t move to fight back, to escape, can’t _breathe_ -

Knuckles white with how hard he grips the knives, he stumbles clumsily up the cellar stairs. Gulps the encroaching cold air.

“What’s he still doin’ down there?”

A lantern light passes the hatch. “It’s one thing torturing a man, it’s another thing puttin’ him through stories of the homeland.”

“He better hurry it up. Colm said law’s on its way. I don’t wanna be here when they come for that side of beef.”

Arthur crawls the last few steps. Fresh air hits his shivering skin, and he drinks every drop he can, heady and precious, trees appearing through the haze of his vision, like a thousand hands against the sky. It’s cold, dark, but whatever time of day it is is impossible to tell, forcing himself to keep moving, all but falling into cover behind the storm cellar hatch, pressed against an adjoining wall.

In the gloom of his consciousness, he remembers Charles again, beacon bright. Sitting across from him in a scorched and burning cornfield, fear contorting his face as he’d offered Arthur his hand, pleaded for him to take it, and helped unfurl his fingers when Arthur couldn’t do it himself. He’d held him up, held him together, strong and firm and achingly gentle, lulling certainty back to him, a soft lullaby of reality and focus, picking up the pieces of a tattered, shipwrecked soul.

His voice was honey then. Ambrosia. God-sent. Touch gentle on his tears, his running nose, his bleeding hands, coaxing him from a precipice that overlooked death itself. Listening with him to the birdsong, the earthen heartbeat, and grounding him within.

Arthur’s breath slows. He hears little, pulse thumping in his ears, but what he can listen to, he does, finding the land around him, the treeline, the crowding branches of broadleaf, the whispering grass. Creaks of wood, old and weather-beaten, blowing dust, a distant vulpine yell, far off.

His eyes open. He has to keep moving.

The lantern light is visible again, held by one of the O’Driscolls, who stops just beyond the building he’s sheltering against, leaning toward the side of what was once a wood store, a few lonely blocks of firewood illuminated by the glow. 

There’s no time to waste. Jerking forward, scuttling like a blind crab, Arthur lurches across the distance and jams a knife into the O’Driscoll’s throat from behind. Grunting, he tears the flesh through, slicing his neck like butter, and the man falls over the log store’s side, gurgling his death into the dirt below.

Heaving for breath, Arthur wipes the knife on his thigh, and collapses to the ground against the wall behind him. It appears to be some kind of shack, the same cold stone as the adjacent cellar, a momentary relief to the trembling muscles of his back. Stretching past the pain, he can just reach the dead man’s gunbelt, and closes his fingers over the grip of a revolver, falling back to the wall behind him as he breathes.

His fingers slip over the stock, barely managing to flick out the barrel and bring it up to his eye level, trying in vain to count the loaded rounds. They swim through his vision, sometimes six and sometimes four, and the blood slick on his hands, the compulsive shaking jerking through his fingers makes it impossible to decipher by touch, let alone cock and fire the damn thing. “Useless,” he breathes, and clenches his teeth, dropping the revolver by his side. He’s better off with the knives.

Another point of lantern light appears after a moment, wobbling with the walk of its carrier, over to his right. It’s blurred by foliage, and Arthur can’t tell how far or near it is, eyelids heavy with the lingering weight of his whole body’s blood, like his eyeballs really have ruptured, and everything he’s seeing is through the red mush they’ve left behind.

His ankles feel like shattered glass. Still, he has to move, forcing himself into a clumsy run, stooped over like a bull lowering its horns, knees and one hand scrambling in the dirt to propel himself forward. The lantern grows brighter. 

He makes it to a tree. Clings to it, bloodied fingers grasping at the bark as he peers around the trunk, the O’Driscoll beyond no more than a silhouette, edges lit in orange, patrolling the nearby track. Lantern raised, he pauses, lifting the light to get a better look at the bushes and shrubs lining the route, their dark leaves silent and churning with the flickering flame. Arthur charges.

The man yelps as he’s hit from behind, heavy weight colliding into his back before his throat is cut. Blood erupts from his neck in one spurt, coating Arthur’s slashing hand, hacking and tearing with the thin knife, fingers slipping, movements clumsy, and Arthur throws him off as soon as he stops fighting, blindly darting back to the cover of the shack. Dust clouds around him, and he wheezes into his good elbow to muffle the sound, eyes starting to water with the pain adrenaline can’t quite numb, racking his chest with every breath. He dries the knives on his thigh.

Got to keep moving. Dutch is in danger.

On the other side of the shack is a wooden shed with a lean-to roof, dilapidated beyond much use except storage. The light is stronger there, a campfire set up in the space between the two structures and shining bright through the holes in the rundown boards, like he’s looking through cell bars. Crates and barrels surround it by way of furniture, an overturned rope spool serving as a nearby card table, complete with bottles, half-smoked cigars. Voices drift, volume inconsistent, and it’s a chorus of white noise he’s familiar with by now, the unnerving laughter from an unknown source, suggesting far more onlookers than he can see, watching him get beaten, commenting on how endearing it is that he’s still trying to fight back.

They’re just Colm’s servants. Sycophants and yes-men, enjoying the power of belonging to something greater than the individual, but Arthur can’t help the vicious flare of anger he feels upon hearing the group laugh, the sick humiliation in his gut as he cowers behind the shack, shivering in his own piss and blood and vomit, the pain hammering in every inch of him, so deafening and massive that he’s sure his brain is shutting most of it out, knowing he’d be comatose if made to feel all of it at once. He breathes, shaky.

Can’t help but want to inflict just one fraction of that pain in return.

Shifting on the ground, he peeks around the corner of the shack. There are three. Unrecognisable, nameless men, with hoarse laughs and grabbing hands, drunk on the deadly disinhibition of being amongst peers, the amoral mentality of the mob. Alone, a man is dangerous, but with his friends- Far worse crimes are committed when the eyes of another are there to encourage.

“We gonna get goin’ soon? Law’s comin’, even if Van der Linde don’t show.”

“He’ll show.”

“That’s what you said yesterday. And the day before.”

“Well why wouldn’t he? Been days since we nabbed his man. Bastard’s prob’ly watchin’ us right now. Spyin’. Him and his bunch of lost boys.”

There’s a murmur of laughter. Arthur flattens against the wall, sinking to sit, legs unable to hold his own weight for long. He clasps the three knives in his only working hand, and breathes.

“You out there Van der Linde? You enjoyin’ watching your boy squeal?”

“Yeah, well- Enjoy this, ya bastard!”

More laughter, as one of the O’Driscolls raises both middle fingers to the darkness, and gestures wildly, showing any spying eyes just what he thinks of them. His companions hoot and bark, sloshing their bottles of beer.

“Maybe he wants to hear more of that journal!”

“Ooh, right you are! Where was I?”

One of the men clears his throat, theatrically loud over the others’ jeering laughter. Arthur peers past the wall again. There looks to be a book in the speaker’s lap, open on his knees.

“Ahem- ‘Charles and I went huntin’ again today. He never ceases to amaze and inspire me. Everything he does is with po- poy-’ Pose? Jesus, I can’t read this fucker’s stupid frilly handwritin’.”

“It says ‘poise’, ya dummy.”

“Well if you so smart, you read it!”

Arthur stares ahead, unseeing. Horror creeps up his spine.

The book is snatched from the first reader, opened at a new page.

“Aha-hem. Ahem. ‘I kissed Charles. These feelings I’ve been having- I ain’t sure I know how to describe them, because I never felt anything like it before. After the cornfield, and Caliga Hall, we were sitting together, me half-dead and him like everything good and beautiful in the world wrapped up in one.’”

The others are barking, hollering their amusement. 

“‘He made peach cobbler. We were talking. And I kissed him. And that ain’t even the best part. He said he’d been wanting to for months, and then he kissed me back. I feel like such a fool, but I’m sure I’ve never felt so happy neither.’”

The laughter pounds in Arthur’s head.

“Ooh Lord, this shit is precious.”

“Y’all believe Van der Linde caught himself a cocksucker.”

“Feckin’ queer. Keep readin’!”

“Okay, okay- Shut up, let me find a good bit-”

The sound of pages rustling, paper between fingers. “Oh, oh! Listen: ‘I hope Charles and I can get away soon. I want to be alone with him, away from all this mess with these old families. It’s driving me crazy. I never felt so strong about anyone before. Even Mary - Devil take my soul - never stirred nothing in me like Charles does.’”

“Fuuuck-”

“Will you fools shut up? You’re makin’ me lose my place. ‘I always thought it was my fault.’”

“Oh my Lord-”

“‘Not loving her hard enough, not touching her right, not feeling nothing when I laid down with her like any other man would. But- But I want Charles like I never wanted nothing. I want _all_ of him. Imagining it - being with him, physical like - raises a passion in me I can’t even describe. It’s embarrassing thinking it, let alone writing it down. Yet I can’t deny it no more, again Hell take me. And what’s better - or worse, I can’t tell - I think Charles wants the same too. Wants me. Old, beat-up, ugly sonofabitch me.’”

Laughter. Laughter. Colliding in his head. Shrill, rising.

“He a bit more beat-up now!”

“Maybe that’s what ‘Charles’ likes!”

“Listen, listen: ‘Is this what every other feller feels when he looks at a woman? When he takes a woman to bed? This heat, this desire- I never felt nothing like it with anyone, but Charles just has to look at me and I’m overcome, like some pubescent boy whose prick’s hard every moment of the day. I cannot hope to explain it, but neither do I want to escape.’”

“Aw hell, sick feller’s got it bad.”

“No wonder he squeaked so loud when Colm roughed him up, the pussy. He was savin’ hisself for _Charles_.”

“Maybe we oughta break him in. Get him warmed up. Since he likes it so much.”

Voices louder. Darker. Echoing. Tangled with laughter.

“That how Charles takes you, Cowboy? He like it raw?”

“Maybe Van der Linde’ll bring Charles along to rescue his boy, and we can see just what he likes-”

With an inhuman noise, Arthur lurches forward around the shack wall, crashing into the nearest O’Driscoll like a train hits a pigeon, erupting in a shriek of snapping bone and blood. 

“Oh _shit_!”

“What the fuck-”

He stabs into his neck. Twice, three times, so deeply that the knife handle is swallowed beneath the bulge of flesh, throat near bisected if not for the stubbornness of his spine, the man’s head teetering over onto his shoulder with one last burble. Arthur drops his body. His companions are screaming.

Blind, Arthur hurls the next knife towards the nearest moving object, seeing it collapse out of view, the spool table upturned, cards fluttering through the air like snow. The campfire light is everywhere at once, smudging the few distinct scraps of shape together, and Arthur has no idea where the third man is, can’t hear, can’t see, stumbling over the body of the decapitated O’Driscoll as his ankles give out, slipping blood-slick to his only working hand, dust kicked up over the fire.

There’s a voice, spitting, ringing in his ears - his, he thinks, roaring his anger, the war-cry of a rabid bear. The third man scrambles and falls sideways over the humble furniture, crawling backwards, and Arthur shunts up onto his knees, lunging for him, managing to close his fist in his shirt and haul, kicking up dirt and stones and dragging him back towards him. A gator dragging its kill into a death roll. The man’s mouth is open and shrieking, writhing in desperation as Arthur bodily pins him, knife dripping, knees on his thighs, wide eyes darting, bulging-

“No! No- God, no!”

Arthur plunges the last knife into his eye socket. Again, the blade sticks, deep, and Arthur snarls as he wrenches it from the screaming man’s skull just to stab him again. Blood is spattered upwards with every sink and squelch of the knife, coating his hand thick as molasses and just as dark, stabbing over and over into the crater left in his head by the dismembered eye, deeper and wetter until his grip slips with all the blood, and he’s slashing his own palm to pull the blade out again, his own blood flowing into the fray.

Face frozen in horror, the man dies somewhere in the middle, screeching in pain and gurgling on his own tongue, his body shuddering limp beneath Arthur’s weight. Even dead, the onslaught doesn’t stop, Arthur robotic in his need to hurt the nameless face, to murder him, to wipe any remnant of him and his unworthy voice from the Earth and return him silent to it. Bleed him into the sand, caught forever in agony and fear and powerlessness, out of reach of Charles’ name and never to exist in the same world as him again.

Only when his arm starts to tire does Arthur slow down. He’s braying loud and animal, leaving the knife plunged deep in the dead man’s hollow head and finally losing the strength to keep up the assault, heaving over the O’Driscoll’s mutilated face.

He falters. Wheezing, he tries to catch his breath, spit dribbling down his chin with the blood from his nose, deaf and half-blind. His knuckles are white around the knife, embedded in a weeping red mass below him, brain matter and fatty tissue spewing out of the slashed face, the other eye popped in sheer terror. It’s a sticky, steaming mess of viscera, more like a smashed watermelon than anything resembling a human head, or the stringy innards of a carved pumpkin, dripping to the ground. 

Arthur shakes, wobbles, a string of saliva flowing from his wet mouth to the mauled crevice in the man’s head. He spits, awareness starting to hit him with the scent of blood, the unmistakable stench of the man’s emptied bowels.

It doesn’t matter. He whines between his teeth, a plaintive whimper, like a dying animal, and unfurls his hand from the knife, several bleeding cuts splitting the width of his palm, his fingers. Breath wheezing, he lets his weight sink, unable to keep holding himself up, and clings to the dead man beneath him, grounding himself in the solidness of him, his paunched stomach, the smell of rust and sweat and bodily fluids.

The man’s chest is still. Arthur rests his head down, eyes wide and panicked.

They’d taken his journal. His one outlet, and they’d taken that too, violated it as they had his body.

“Charles…”

His breath falters, gets stuck between his lungs and his lips, and he chokes, shoulder shaking as he again whimpers, curling his dripping hand in the dirty fabric of the O’Driscoll’s shirt, squeezing. Compared to the agony of the rest of him, he barely feels it at all.

Their words spin in his head. Mocking, laughing, somehow worse than the torture. They’d spat Charles’ name like it was poison, like their relationship was disgusting, and anger swirls in him with the exhaustion, helpless fury burning behind his eyelids.

Part of him can’t see the point in getting up.

Why bother?

The O’Driscoll’s shirt starts to stain, red from the seep of blood from Arthur’s nose, the mucus and saliva, dripping steadily as his working shoulder shakes, unable to stop his own tears as they overflow. 

It’s cold. As cold as it was in the cellar. His bared chest prickles with the chill, damp all over from sweat, and he shivers as he clings to the dead man’s shirt, squeezing harder with every urge to sob, breath choked and loud.

Maybe he’ll die here. Maybe the fever will take him, and the next time he falls asleep, he won’t wake up.

Maybe he’ll never see Charles again. In the fog of his head, he can barely picture his face at all.

The realisation spills more tears, and for a long time Arthur doesn’t get up, eyes open and streaming, unseeing as he cries. Tears drip down his nose.

Night settles around him, still as death and just as cold. The warmth ebbs from the corpse beneath him. If time passes, it’s unnoticeable, a slow dirge through a bog, sucked down by the mud, the only feeling that registers the gnawing of leeches covering his legs, drinking his energy. The pain drags, drowning.

A teardrop clings to the end of his nose, and he sniffs, the tickling sensation stirring something like thought in the mire. There was something important he was doing, he’s sure.

Dutch. Dutch is in danger.

A breeze rustles past, and Arthur blinks through the remaining tears, picking his head up from the still chest beneath him. “Dutch,” he chokes, voice wobbling, staring unseeingly to the black perimeter, as if the man himself was truly hiding in the trees, watching, waiting for the best moment.

No answer comes.

Dutch needs him. He has to warn him.

Blinking, Arthur sits up, achingly slow. His journal lies on the ground a few feet away, recognisable even through the haze, and he drags himself to it without hesitation, sliding limply off the dead O’Driscoll and hauling himself past the campfire on his knees, wading past toppled bottles, cigarette butts. It’s undamaged. Open on a sketch of Charles, dust blown over his pencilled face.

The face is recognisable. And inordinately beautiful, even if his meagre hand could never hope to capture Charles in his entirety.

He has to get back. Needs to see Charles’ face again. Needs to warn Dutch.

Arthur gently blows away the debris from the open page, and cradles the journal in his bloody hand against his chest, sitting in the dirt between three dead bodies. The fire crackles. He wipes his eyes.

His head throbs, blurring what little he can see in a disjointed, harried rhythm, chasing his pounding heartbeat, and for a moment he just sits, hand folded around his journal, breathing in the cold air, trying to get his bearings.

There’s a chest beside the shed door. They’d tipped furniture in the struggle, but even past the discarded crockery, the upturned chair, he can see his own gunbelt, thrown over the top of the chest. Gingerly, he gets to his feet, and totters like a newborn calf, stumbling towards the shed to recover his belongings. 

They aren’t well hidden. His satchel is inside, revolver and sawn-off shotgun still in their holsters, and he slings the belt over his shoulder with the bag, clinging to the shed wall as he again stands on numbed feet, struggling to see through the gloom.

Movement stirs further ahead. Arthur tries to quiet his breathing, stooping as he makes his way further from the campfire’s light, away from the cellar, the black shackles. Anything he meets in the wilderness will be preferable to going back there. The corpses are left to steam in the night air, and only once he’s past being able to see them when he looks back does he realise what the movement is ahead.

“Mags?”

Horses are tethered a short way from the camp, grazing, their burrs and snorts recognisable as Arthur approaches, clinging to the open-ended fence they’re hitched to. One mare stands out, the moonlight catching a black mane and white tail, velvet and gossamer in one, her back painted in the richest and most opaque dark he can see.

His mare. His Magpie.

As he stumbles closer, Magpie tosses her head, ears twitching back towards him. “Magpie,” he whispers, barely able to believe it’s truly her, there with him the entire time, left tied just as he was. Holding himself up on the fence, he blinks through the gloom to see her more clearly, breath trembling as badly as he is.

It’s her. It’s definitely her. His beloved mare, brave and beautiful. But…

Her eyes are wild. Even with him standing beside her, her ears are flat and warning, jolting unsteady on her hooves as she shifts in place, set apart from the other horses, tacked still as when Arthur last saw her. Sweat glistens on her chafed flanks. Nostrils flare in an anxious snort, mouth dripping around her bit. “Mags?”

Hand gentle, near blind on his wobbling legs, Arthur touches her shoulder, feels how she flinches beneath his palm. He strokes her stiff withers, and she reacts like she doesn’t know him, panic plain and rising. “It’s just me, girl.”

She whinnies, high and nervous, tail swishing, and the sound is heartbreaking, more so because Arthur can’t find the wherewithal he needs to be able calm her, knowing nothing except they have to leave. Now. They need to get out. 

“We gotta go, sweetheart,” he whispers, rasping with the sheer effort of still holding himself up, feeling his way around her to untie her reins, fumbling with the leather. The blood makes his fingers slip, and nausea starts to swell in his gut again as the grass blurs beneath his feet as he moves, like he’s standing on the surface of a pitching ship, and his stomach is following suit. “I- They’ll find us here, we- We gotta-”

He shuts his eyes as the feeling clenches and writhes, and settles his head on her saddle to breathe, not knowing how in Hell he’s going to get up with only one arm, focusing first on securing his gunbelt and satchel where he can. Agitated by his fumbling, Magpie skitters in place, dancing, ready to run, to escape, her stirrups hitting her cinch strap, tight and biting at her belly.

She must be in as much pain as he is, and half as able to block it out with rational thought. They need to get back. No matter how terrified both of them are, they must get out.

Using the fence as a leg-up, and by some small miracle, he manages to haul himself up over her croup, hefting the dead weight of his body over the saddle, crumpling weakly forward across her neck. Leaden legs scramble to right his balance, her weight shifting uncomfortable beneath him as he wobbles and kicks, pitching him like a sapling in a storm. He clings to her, inching himself over the cantle as he tries multiple times to find the stirrups and some support, bare toes numb and clumsy.

“We gotta…” Arthur groans, head lolling into Magpie’s black mane, the urge to vomit again creeping up from his insides. The ground swirls. “We gotta go, girl. Get-”

She stutters forward, unsure, and immediately kicks out her hind hooves in panic and pain, splintering the fence as she skitters into an anxious, unbalanced lope, her legs stiff and unsound. Arthur falls over the saddle horn, breath knocked out of him, and lets instinct keep him moving with her, legs bumping uselessly against her girth, good hand tangled in a fistful of her mane. Skirting the perimeter fence, she runs, past the shack and out onto a dirt track, kicking up the dust behind her, desperate to flee.

Barely a few yards out, suddenly there’s a rider, lantern light visible before he is. A disembodied orange glow bobs on the road beyond, like will-o-the-wisps in the gloom of Arthur’s consciousness, phantoms luring him blind into the promise of light. The promise of heading right back into the cellar, and letting the fever take him.

He groans, clenched teeth, and clamps his left leg against Magpie’s side, bruised ankle bone knocking clumsily into her, pushing her out. Tossing her head, she snorts her discomfort and veers, lurching chaotically out over a dull stretch of scrubby grass, brushing through knots of ambiguous green foliage, too indistinct for Arthur to identify.

Leant deep over Magpie’s neck, Arthur shuts his eyes. The ground rushes past, a murky sea of brown and grey and green and the remnant red in his eye sockets, sloshing through his pounding head until he can’t breathe, nose pressed into Magpie’s mane, praying they’re not heard, not seen-

The land disappears. Magpie stumbles, tripping forward down an unseen slope of sand, loose rock slipping beneath her hooves. The grass has vanished, replaced by a low plain of silt and shifting sand, hurtling towards him, tipped over Magpie’s shoulder and unable to rebalance as she charges into a frenzied gallop, skidding out onto the beach.

He’s got no hope of holding on. Jarred sideways, Arthur falls.

His back hits the ground, breath knocked out, a short grunt of pain all he can voice. The sand slips loose and he rolls, shoulders tumbling over and over each other until he sprawls to a stop, spread-eagled and white, barely managing to curl up onto his side, head thudding with the sound of hoofbeats long after he passes out.

 

When he comes to, it’s to warmth on his face. His eyelids flutter, the warmth coming in short puffs, damp somehow, chilling the drops of sweat clinging to his forehead. He groans, deep and rattling, and wheezes himself awake, pain in every inch of him that he can feel, and a wetness on his fingers, somewhere out of reach beside him.

The warmth huffs over him again, and as he blinks, he finds its source. Two pink nostrils are snuffling at his face, soft muzzle tickling his hair. “M-Mags?”

Magpie snorts, and her hot breath makes him reflexively try to smile, a weak movement of his lips as he tries to lift his head, push away from her gentle lips, her filament whiskers, probing curiously at his face, breathing in his hair.

It’s dark around him, but the red of blood is visible, caked to his fingers, up his arm. His right hand is outstretched by his side, counterbalance to slow his fall, and the wetness belongs to the water lapping at his fingers, a pale expanse of featureless grey, trembling in his vision. A lake, perhaps? The water sucks at the blood coating them, kissing the shoreline where he’s lying in the gentle motion of a tide, sand wet and compacted beneath him.

Magpie snorts at him again, head low, and nudges his face with her nose, slowly ducking down onto her knees. Her hocks follow, and she settles to lie down on the sand next to him, awkward as only horses can be, as if always only just remembering they have four legs, let alone how to move all of them at once.

“My girl,” Arthur mumbles, voice wrought with exhaustion, and curls his hand up to touch her neck. “My s-sweet...girl.” He plants his elbow in the sand, and tries desperately to roll, to shift his weight to his front, every muscle trembling, aching with a deep, layered agony.

After a good few minutes, he manages to find his knees, and all but sprawls across Magpie’s back, once again clinging to her neck, unable to keep any kind of hold on her reins except to hook them over the saddlehorn. She clambers to her feet, stiff and unsteady, but Arthur stays on, slipping his feet beneath her girth strap since he can’t find the stirrups, and taking new hold of her mane with his one hand.

“Get me home, girl,” Arthur says, whispered unintelligibly into her mane. “We gotta get home. And… A-And I dunno the way. I can’t- Please…”

Miraculously, she responds to his clumsy squeezing at her sides, starting to walk with Arthur limp and trembling over her neck, bleeding unnoticed from his gaping shoulder, staining her coat red.

  
  


*

  
  


The red and pink of evening passes, and night rolls in, warm as cashmere. Charles doesn’t stop. Taima is a bulwark, determined to keep going no matter how far he urges her on, pausing only to answer nature or study the churned ground, dusting off the trail like an archaeologist chips a fossil from rock.

They ride on. The miles stick together, like sodden pages in a book, and with every step further into New Hanover, Arthur’s absence gets heavier, beating down on Charles’ shoulders like the sun had all day. Night is a relief, but a shallow one.

Out of the Heartlands, the prairie had merged back into green grassland, climbing into a sweeping plateau, sloping away to Flat Iron Lake to the south, and falling suddenly into the endless Dakota valley in the north. Reclaimed by trees, dense oak and pine forests bracket the ridges and cliffs, lush where the plains were barren, humming in the summer sun as the day wore on.

Horseshoe Overlook sits obscured behind one such forest, and Charles had spared a moment’s thought for their temporary home as he passed, following the railroad track westwards, out over the plateau. The farmer at Flatneck Station had lined his pocket with a few dollars as the sun had started to set, and only then remembered a group of men passing through in the preceding days, a distinctive black and white mare with them. 

Tracks are indistinguishable on such well-travelled roads, and the blood trail had long been washed into nothing thanks to recent rainfall, but Charles knows Magpie is far too valuable a horse to just shoot, or leave in the wilderness. She’s rare, and trained well, and he counts on it to jog the farmer’s memory. Luckily, the hunch paid off, and Charles had continued, pointed towards the Dakota river, far down into the valley. Further west.

By dusk, he was scouring the riverbank, the cliff sides, carved out by the ancient flow of water eroding millennia of rock. From Caliban’s Seat, past the blackened husk of Limpany, and then beneath the towering ironwork of Bard’s Crossing bridge as night had begun its descent, he searched, hunting for any sign, any clue that could be related back to Arthur.

There’s nothing.

Desperation sets in with the dark of night. 

On the riverbank, he lingers to collect himself, keep himself focused and together. The bridge looms above him, casting spider shadows on the sand below, and he lets Taima nibble at the rushes as they linger on the east bank, Charles caught between the need to stop and rest, and the drive to carry on.

They must have crossed the river. It’s the only way forward; there are no other signs this side of West Elizabeth. If he makes camp now, will it be more distance between them? Will it be another day of danger, another day of Arthur in trouble with no one to help?

Taima would ride all night if he asked her.

But maybe it’s just more overreaction. Maybe this whole fool’s errand has been overreaction, coloured by his feelings for Arthur, and he’ll have to face Dutch knowing he was wrong, accepting the thinly-veiled jab that Dutch knows Arthur better than anyone, and that Charles is nothing, _nothing_ compared to him. Compared to the man who has shaped most of his life, molded his doctrine from malleable clay, given him purpose, profession. Belonging.

What is Charles’ few months compared to that?

He sighs through his teeth, and rubs Taima’s crest. It was a foolish, lovesick idea. Better saved for romance novels and silly fantasy. Had he expected to find Arthur in the wilderness? Rescue him from some unknown peril and carry him home in his arms, like some folk hero? Arthur could be camped anywhere, and would surely be taking advantage of the time alone. Enjoying his sleep beneath the stars he loves to watch, head free of worry and relaxing in the freedom that isolation brings him, dreaming of meadows, of eagles and deer.

What right does Charles have to intrude on him? On his life? He feels for Arthur, stronger than he’s ever felt for anyone or even known to be possible, and he’s sure Arthur felt similarly- He’s sure…

But what if that, too, is just another sign of his failure to understand Arthur and what they have together? Truly, he’s never felt anything like this...passion before. He has no frame of reference. Is he slotting himself into Arthur’s existence because of his own sense of loneliness, without stopping to think perhaps Arthur doesn’t want him there?

In the still of the night, Taima makes a soft noise, and cranes her neck to look back at him, interested in his boot where it hangs by her side. He sighs, and lets his shoulders fall, hope deflating from within him, plagued by doubt.

“I know,” he says, leaning down to rest his cheek on Taima’s grey neck, nose in her mane, barely audible over the flow of the water. She softens at the touch. “We’ll keep looking in the morning.”

It’s not helping to think so much. Arthur wouldn’t have missed out on a planned meeting without a word as to where he was going, especially not after such an important outing with Dutch. Even if he doesn’t know him as well as Dutch does, Charles is sure of that. Wanderlust is a trait they both share, but Arthur wears his loyalty to Dutch above all else, and takes pride in it, like a greatcoat, buttons polished, a jewelled pin on the lapel, only Charles seeming to notice that the side seams are worn, stitching coming apart.

Along the shore, Charles picks out a spot for a camp, beneath the watching eyes of an eagle, perched on the iron balustrades of the bridge, surveying the valley below. As he stretches his ankles from the stirrups, ready to dismount, Taima lifts her head, and her ears suddenly prick forward. She nickers, curious. Charles follows her gaze. Loses all his breath in one.

On the west bank of the river, emerging from the ragged cliffside, bright coat stark and glowing even with the waning crescent moon, is a horse. It’s walking lame, unsteady on its hooves as if burdened with an uneven load, leaning oddly to one side and stumbling often. 

Like a weary phantom, it moves into the water, teetering on shaking legs like it’s drunk, staggering through the shallows beneath the bridge. Her coat is instantly recognisable. Like tar melting over snow, shining and slick in the dim light, the pale figure swims in reflection in the water, a thousand ghosts cast-off from each step and floundering with every ripple, images within images collapsing in on one another, like the house of mirrors at a carnival. It’s-

Taima whinnies. “Magpie?”

Charles grabs her reins, and she’s cantering before he even asks, closing on the lame mare with every stride. They crash through the river water, and at a hundred yards Charles knows for certain it’s her, knows her markings anywhere, her patterned saddle blanket. It’s definitely her, pitching on her legs like a sinking ship taking on water, being dragged into the depths, but- Where’s her rider? There’s nothing in her saddle but a formless red mass, some kind of luggage maybe-

The shape shifts, folding in half in the middle, and Arthur hits the water in horrifying slow motion, toppling over Magpie’s shoulder like a house of cards.

“Arthur!”

Breathless, Charles pulls Taima up, and she splashes to a stop in the shallow water as Magpie robotically continues walking, unable to register the loss of her rider. As she nears them, Charles can see the garish red stain over her left side, flooding her coat with colour and dripping down to her hocks in long strings, only washed off by the lake water as her hooves wade through. There’s sweat glistening all over her, and her head is high and tossing, ears flicking constantly, tail swishing as she mechanically keeps walking, as if it’s all she knows how to do. All she _can_ do.

Desperate, Charles all but falls from the saddle, hurrying out to where Arthur’s body fell, able to see the blood swirling out in a wide circle from a nondescript lump, drifting through the pooled water like red ink. “Arthur?” he breathes, and runs, falling heavily to his knees in the sodden sand.

Arthur is curled on his side, half naked, only covered by what looks like his union suit, though it’s closer to rags than anything wearable. His face is ashen, mottled a sickly shade of white and black with bruises, with open cuts and welts, and what’s visible of his body isn’t any better, a patchwork quilt of injury, of swollen purple bruising beneath his sweating skin. Charles sits frozen in the water, and chokes on Arthur’s name, not knowing where to touch to pick him up, which parts of him are whole.

Arthur’s eyelids flutter, and some deep survival instinct turns his face slightly from the water’s surface, shifting his weight away from breathing it in. He’s _alive_ -

“Arthur- It’s me, it’s Charles-”

His voice breaks. Shatters. He wants to scream. It feels vaguely like the air is running out of oxygen, swallowed up from his insides by a rising tide of disgust and horror. His hands move to touch him, but for a long moment he can’t close the remaining few inches, sure Arthur’s fragile body will crumble under his fingers, or else he’ll cause more pain, split Arthur apart by severing the threads that are holding him together.

The blood is still flowing. So much blood, he’s soaked in it, dripping wet- How is he _alive_?

His eyelids flutter again, pained crease appearing between his brow, dripping with sweat and caked in grime. A huge and hideous bruise covers most of his forehead, skin split in the centre. Hit by something blunt. One of his eyes has swollen into itself. There’s blood sticky around his nostrils, wiped clumsily from his eyes, even his ears, crusted red around every orifice.

He has to move him. Gentle as possible, Charles digs one hand into the fine sand beneath Arthur’s head, and sets the other around and under him, supporting his bloody ribcage as he picks him up from the ground, water sloshing in his lap as Arthur’s pulled through it, and cradled against his chest. “Arthur. Please-”

Every bit of him seems to radiate sickness, thrumming in the chill night air, veins like blue cracks in white porcelain, skin mottled and muddy like sour milk. Touching Arthur’s pale cheek, Charles presses his fingers to his neck, listening to feel his pulse. It’s racing, too fast to count, not much of a relief despite the fact it’s there and he’s _alive_ \- and as he breathes against Arthur’s head, too shocked to do anything but, Charles can smell the infected flesh, getting his first glimpse of the wound to his left shoulder. 

‘Wound’ doesn’t seem an adequate word.

Realisation spreads across his face like dark, stealing his breath, and he pulls back to see the appalling extent of it, the ruined mess where once was Arthur’s chest. Eyes wide and jaw slack, Charles can recognise a shotgun wound when he sees one. The flesh is caved inwards, a dripping, reeking pit. It’s clearly septic, oozing with a thick black tar, gluing singed scraps of his underwear into the hole like flies drowning in honey, congealed blood and pus writhing alive in the thin moonlight. An angry rift has collapsed most of his pectoral just beneath his collarbone, muscle tattered in shreds along with the cotton, and it’s impossible to tell what used to be clothing and what was once skin, organic fibres ripped and sticky and red, sodden in blood.

It’s a visceral, revolting injury, leaking the stench of infection, leaving nothing but a mutilated crater in Arthur’s flesh, burnt at the edges with explosive powder burns, exposing the deep tissue of his chest like raw red meat that’s been carved with a flail rather than a single blade.

It’s _horrifying_.

Charles can only stare, dumbstruck, and cradle Arthur’s shivering body in his arms, holding him close without much care for how the blood seeps into his own shirt, for how the spit and mucus around Arthur’s lax mouth smears on his collar. He rocks, eyes blank and unseeing, embracing the body against his chest, afraid to let go.

For what feels like an hour, he sits with him in the water, paralysed in his own horror, the conflicting tangle of relief and guilt, fear and fury, only able to stroke his thumb over the patch of bare skin where he holds Arthur’s slack cheek, and listen to the rabbit pace of his heartbeat, sure that any second it will stop. His eyes burn, tears welling up.

It’s only a few minutes, in reality. Arthur whimpers, deep in unconsciousness, and Charles knows they must move. There’s no time for his breakdown.

Mechanical, he shifts his hold, gathers Arthur in both of his arms, and pointedly ignores the fact his feet look more blue than flesh-coloured, nails black with grime, some splintered completely in two.

The acrid scent of urine as they move is unmistakable, Arthur’s union suit stained heavily with what must be days of neglect, vomit down his front, blood coagulated everywhere Charles can see, dried in patches of his chest hair, clinging to the split buttons of his suit, far too open for any sort of modesty. He reeks of damp, of the filth of the cellar, and strongest of all, infection. They need to get back. Now. Three days ago.

He gets to his feet. Arthur’s head lolls against him as he moves, carrying him bodily against his chest, arm under his knees. His entire left arm looks useless, limp and hanging awkwardly from his shoulder as they walk, like a badly hung painting, hand pale and unmoving. Charles tries not to look at it.

“I’ve got you,” he says, as if talking will stave off the horror, stopper the unshed tears, and hauls Arthur towards Taima, managing to lift him high enough and prop him up in her saddle while he mounts, and sits behind him, arm tight around Arthur’s bared waist, keeping him safe and steady with his body pressed against his back. “Just hold on. Please, I-I’ve-” His voice breaks again, and Charles frowns, forehead resting on Arthur’s head for just a moment, biting back his own distress. There’s still the faintest scent of soap in his hair. “I’ve got you,” he whispers, and gees Taima up into canter.

Magpie has made it another few hundred yards in the meantime, prancing unevenly in her panic and making her way further along the beach, stuttered hoofprints winding through the damp sand on the eastern shore of the Dakota. She sees them coming, sidestepping as she lifts her head to watch Taima, wading a few steps into the lake to get away.

Charles slows, and keeps Taima steady, approaching at Magpie’s pace. If he dismounts, he’s sure Arthur will end up on the ground again, so he stays in the saddle, at enough distance that Magpie doesn’t flee any further into the water. “Magpie,” he says, eyeing the swathe of blood covering her shoulder, streaked with her sweat. “Be still, sweet thing. We’re friends.”

Slowing, Magpie throws her head, eyes staring, darting. She whinnies in warning, high-pitched, stamping her hooves. Threatening to run. The sand scuffs beneath her. “Shh, easy, brave girl. I know you’re afraid. I am too.”

Holding Arthur tight, hand fixed to his breastbone, Charles leans to rifle through one of his saddlebags, and pulls out an apple. He lets Magpie see it, offering it towards her. “Brave girl,” he says again, soft, despite how his voice tries to shake, attention caught by the thundering pulse beneath his left hand, racking Arthur’s ribcage. “Let me help. We’ll get home together. I’ve got you. Both of you.”

The smell of the apple triumphs over Magpie’s unease, days of starvation weighing heavily on her just as it does Arthur, and she eventually comes close enough to take it from Charles’ quiet hand, letting him reach for her reins as she eats, tether her to Taima’s bridle. It’s not ideal, but time is already against them. Every second he wastes listening to Arthur’s pulse, is another second closer to when it might stop.

As they walk further along the beach, horses abreast, Charles wraps Arthur in a blanket from his camping gear, tucking it around his bare torso, his shaking shoulders, colder than the water was. His head lolls, neck unable to take its weight, and as he holds him, tight to his chest, Charles wonders whether he’ll wake up at all.

 

Somewhere west of Dewberry Creek, there’s an abandoned mill on the riverbank where they rejoin the road, scattering a hunting pack of coyotes, yipping into the dark grass. Charles manages to feed him some sips of water, sure dehydration is amongst the myriad things Arthur is suffering with, though most of it ends up soaking into the blanket down his front. The canteen slips over his lips, clumsy. But he drinks out of reflex, and a little is surely better than nothing.

The night draws on as they do, slow and chilly, Charles unwilling to ask Magpie to move any faster than a nervous walk, clearly struggling with pain as well as exhaustion. They drag through the endless grassland of Scarlett Meadows, a moonlit grey watercolour littered with the crumbling remains of stone fences and hearths, rundown farm houses more splinters than structure. All Charles hears is hooves and the nocturnal animals, unseen owls and distant screeching foxes rustling through the undergrowth of the forests, and Arthur’s rattling breath, stilted and harsh, too quiet and yet deafening in the silence of night, echoing around the dense woods they pass through. Charles listens, and repeats all he knows as a mantra. A prayer to whatever gods are listening. They must get back.

There’s no room for more thought than his immediate perception, no energy to give for the panic pressing at his peripheral vision, the sick horror fluttering in his gut with every inhale of the smell clinging to the man in his arms. He has no time to acknowledge his own feelings, despite the length of the journey back, mind singular in its one permissible desire. They must get to camp.

Thinking can wait. Arthur can’t.

Finally, the red siding of the Southfield Flats mill comes into view, bright against the rich sky, like silk on velvet. Clouds are brushed through the indigo expanse, and no stars are visible, swallowed up in stormy sea, the sliver of visible moon seeming to crest and fall like a galleon, tossed upon the dark waves. Charles is the only rider for dozens of miles, following the lonely road towards the marshes, before finally, finally veering off, entering the woods around Clemens Point.

The camp is quiet. A few night owls sit around the campfire, visible from the treeline as Charles walks the horses on. Dread claws at him.

“Who’s there?” John’s voice rings through the night, disembodied through the blanket foliage. Straining to see through the darkness, he emerges from the trees and straightens up, readying his repeater, aimed at the track ahead.

Taima bustles into view through the weeds, tailing Magpie beside her, and the shock on John’s face is almost frightening in its intensity, the suddenness with which it overcomes his features, snapping across his face like the hanged man through the gallows trapdoor. “Holy hell- Is that-”

“Get Dutch,” Charles snaps, and looks down at him from the saddle. 

He’s blazing with quashed fear, leaving only fury to fill the void, and his hushed voice seems to tremble with how tight it is, pulled taut like a bowstring. John’s eyes are saucers, staring at the corpse in Charles’ arms. “Wake him, wake Hosea, Miss Grimshaw- Everyone. Now.”

“Arthur…?”

“ _Now_ , John!”

John nods, and jolts himself into a run towards the glow of camp.

Making sure the blanket is covering the majority of Arthur’s bare abdomen at least, Charles urges Taima to continue, Magpie anxiously towed beside her towards the hitching posts set out between the treeline and the main camp. 

Teeth clenched, he nuzzles his nose into the back of Arthur’s head, just a tiny gesture, knowing Arthur won’t be able to feel it at all. “We’re home,” he murmurs, adjusting his grip on Arthur’s waist, reluctantly loosening his hold. “I’ve got you. Just hold on a little longer.”

Deeper into the clearing, Karen notices them approach, watching John sprint clumsily ahead from where she’d been drinking around the campfire. She stands to see. Frowns.

“Is that Arthur?”

Realisation clamps her hand to her mouth, and the others around the fire take notice of the commotion, Uncle getting to his feet, Javier putting down his guitar.

John starts yelling, calling for Dutch outside his tent before hurrying to wake Hosea, shattering the late night calm, scurrying to and from the lean-to like a jackrabbit through fields. The slow quiet of their ride back seems to start spinning, whirring into a tight spiral like silk on a spindle, the speed of the world around him tripping forward, skipping faster. Charles dismounts.

Arthur pitches without his weight, but is caught in Charles’ waiting hands, steadying him before he can fall, bundling him in the blanket like a swaddled infant, cradled in Charles’ arms as he hoists him from the saddle. “I’ve got you,” he whispers, close to Arthur’s sweating forehead, and then he’s face-to-face with Miss Grimshaw, barrelling towards them from the fire, shrieking her distress when she sees the state of him.

“Arthur!” she cries, and touches his pallid face, pulls at his shredded union suit, the blanket, flapping like a grandmother might fuss over her grandchildren. Charles meets her desperate gaze with unbridled ferocity, like fire staring down a single snowflake.

“Arthur?” Karen appears, red flush in her cheeks, down over her breast. “What- What happened? Is he drunk?”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Arthur!”

Dutch’s voice rings. He parts the hastening crowd like Moses did the Red Sea, hurrying towards him, clad in a black brocade dressing gown. Dimly, Charles reckons it’s probably worth more than the rest of the camp’s bedrolls combined. It’s almost a surprise he doesn’t have rollers curled into his hair, to complete the look, kept neat with a scarf knotted around his head.

“Arthur, my _boy_ -”

Something about Dutch’s voice seems to stir Arthur’s hazy consciousness, and he wheezes against Charles’ shoulder where his head rests, lolling, blood bubbling from his nose, breath crackling through split lips. His eyelids twitch, and a sliver of blue appears beneath them, barely aware. “D...Dutch…”

“My boy, my dear boy, what-”

Dutch pushes past Miss Grimshaw, face contorted as he regards Arthur’s body, a vaudevillian mixture of horror and disgust. He reaches out, rings still adorning his fingers as they touch Arthur’s cheek. 

A split second, and Arthur flinches, gasping backwards into the meat of Charles’ shoulder, momentarily terrified. Charles feels the occipital bone at the back of his skull, pressed tight and unyielding to his arm. Dutch retreats, sudden and then slow, as if trying to make it look deliberate.

“S’a trap...Dutch,” Arthur whispers, like he’s talking in his sleep, and nausea pulls at his eyes again, forcing them shut as he tries to right his spinning head, fair eyelashes fluttering. White seems to flood his face. “C-Colm…s’a trap...”

“The O’Driscolls took him,” Charles explains, dark and hurried.

“O’Driscolls?” Dutch echoes, clenched in realisation.

“I think he’s been tortured.”

“Tortured?!” snaps Karen, from somewhere on his right.

“O’Driscolls tortured Arthur?”

More questions join, more faces push into view.

“What happened-”

“I thought he was running errands!”

“We do not have time for this,” Charles snaps, as a thousand voices ask for answers, clamouring over one another like clucking hens, pecking at his patience. “ _He_ does not have time.”

He pushes through the crowd, Arthur groaning softly against his chest. A sleep-weary Hosea appears in the fray, Miss Grimshaw hurrying after him towards Arthur’s wagon. “Get him to bed,” she says, voice wobbling.

“Reverend Swanson! I need you here!”

“You’re safe now, Arthur-”

“Get him into bed.”

“Arthur- Arthur, I’m so sorry-”

“It’s a bit late for apologies, Mister Pearson!”

“Is he gonna be okay?”

“ _Swanson_!”

“Oh, Mister Morgan- You’re safe now-”

“Enough!” Charles spits. 

He draws himself up, nostrils flared, jaw muscle jumping. “He does not have time! We need boiled water. Gauze, wadding, clean towels. Now.”

In direct contrast to the fury of his expression, he enters Arthur’s personal space beneath the canopy of his wagon, and sets Arthur down on his cot with aching tenderness, gently pulling the blanket up over his bare chest, unwilling to let Arthur languish naked under so many pairs of eyes like a side of cold meat.

The crowd thins quickly, dispersing in a frenzy of hushed conversation, delegating tasks amongst themselves, and Charles is left standing silent over Arthur’s cot with Dutch alone, the brocade of his gown seeming three dimensional even in the dark. 

“You’re safe now, son,” Dutch says, low and melancholy, and though it’s surely intended to be mournful, it reminds Charles of the hunting mewl of a panther, heard in the darkness between trees, a sound that pulls the tendon of his trigger finger, plucking at it. He straightens from Arthur’s bedside, and Charles simply stares at the back of his head in response, until the weight of his gaze is tangible, boring like drills, and Dutch looks up.

They meet each other’s eyes. There’s a few inches of height between them, Dutch taller than even Charles is, but even dishevelled, bloodied, his tunic stained with various bodily fluids and coated in dust on top of that, hair strewn chaotic around his face, Charles seems to ooze perfectly collected composure. And ferocity. 

He’s a six foot statue carved in jasper, the fire alight and dancing in him, and Dutch is nothing in his gaze, not leader, not mentor, not messiah. _Nothing_. A sinner prostrate against the shrine of his uncaring god, begging for a forgiveness that won’t come. Tantalus beneath the eternal apple tree, his hunger shredding his insides, with Hades looking on from behind a three course meal, picking his teeth.

For a long moment, nothing is audible, the night silenced like a hand is squeezing at its throat, or else a ligature of biting wire, the space around Arthur’s wagon strung up and ratcheted tight enough to squeak, tension thick and crackling. It rolls off Charles in waves, like fever, like heat before a thunderstorm, rising, cloying, pounding into lightning that rents the sky in two.

All he does is stare. Dutch’s lips twitch. Beads of perspiration glisten on his moustache, like seed pearls.

Arthur shifts beside them. “Ch...Charles…”

His voice is worn linen, weft and weave coming apart. Chest heaving a deep and creaking breath, he grunts in his uneasy sleep, and settles again, still and silent. 

Pride swells in Charles’ distraught heart, unbidden and dark. He was right. He knows Arthur. Eyes like inlaid stones, unwavering, goading in the sheer emptiness of them, devoid of anything but whatever Dutch sees reflected back at him, Charles _dares_ him to speak. Dares him to spin a tale and explain this away. To open his mouth and let Charles make it the last time he has a tongue to lie with.

“S’cuse me-” Clattering between them, Hosea bustles into the space, kneeling haltingly on the grass beside Arthur’s bed to press a wet cloth to his forehead, wiping at the sweat. It distracts Dutch enough that he looks away. Instantly, the trembling tension shatters, and he doesn’t bother to excuse himself, simply turning and heading around the end of Arthur’s wagon, back towards his tent.

The silence breaks, and Charles huffs, short and sharp.

Kneeling beside Hosea, Charles exchanges a look with him. There aren’t any words. The pain in his lined face threatens, like a black cloud, heavy with rain, and Charles looks down, sure his own emotions will snap if he dwells on the reflection of them for too long, shimmering in Hosea’s eyes. 

There’s no time. 

Robotic, he finds a clean union suit in the trunk at the end of Arthur’s bed. Keeping Arthur covered as best they can with the blanket, he and Hosea strip the ruined one from his shivering body, absorbing every gasp of pain, every revealed wound, like sponges sucking water, compounding their joint horror deep inside the both of them. 

It can wait.

 

Over the next hour, they give Arthur the scarcest cloth bath they can, washing away the worst of the dirt - the layer of congealed brown-yellow urine, dried blood and bile - with clean rags and boiled water, liniment from a green bottle that dyes his skin an odd yellow colour as it breaks through the compacted filth and lets the pale of his flesh show through. Part of him wants to protect Arthur from even Hosea, hide his nakedness, the embarrassment he’s sure Arthur would feel were he conscious. But Hosea is...the only one whose presence there Charles takes comfort in. The only one he’s certain will be respectful, and so they work in silence, an unsaid understanding between them.

Once clean, they redress him in the new underwear, mechanical, the clinical efficiency of orderlies in a military hospital, working in tandem as the time ticks away. They leave the left sleeve off, Arthur’s arm held awkwardly over the side of his bed, and the full horror of the shotgun wound is bared to the candlelight in grisly black glory, earning pained gasps from everyone who sees it. They bring the supplies Charles asked for, more pails of boiled water, nondescript bottles from Strauss’ wagon, strong alcohol, Charles’ pack full of herbs, a basin for them to wash their hands before touching Arthur any further, and each one leaves a little paler than they came, stunned into revolted silence. 

It’s somehow even worse once cleaned. An indescribable horror to look at, let alone smell. It’ll be a miracle if he ever uses the arm again.

There’s a constant flurry of activity throughout the early hours, claustrophobic and yet a welcome distraction all at once, something to focus on when his mind drifts into dangerous territory, threatening to truly realise the gravity of what’s happening in front of him, teetering on the edge of it. 

Miss Grimshaw re-appears at some point, and sits by the table next to Arthur’s bedside. She’s silent, and Charles considers telling her they’re grateful, but don’t need any help, and to get some more sleep. That he and Hosea can attempt the mammoth task of cleaning Arthur up, dressing his wounds. Until, he realises why it is she’s there.

It’s a vigil. Sitting at the bedside of the dying, those unlikely to make it through the night. Waiting. To meet their God, or the Creator, the Hunting Grounds of his mother’s people, or simply the darkness of oblivion, with someone there to light their way.

They think Arthur’s going to die.

When he looks at her, Susan’s eyes are ringed with red. But she never sheds any tears, simply watches, silent, waiting with them for when the end comes, and Arthur breathes his last on this unforgiving Earth.

Charles frowns, constantly. He watches Arthur’s pallid face, jaw muscles twitching in unsettled, pained sleep, and knows he will take on Death himself, to wrestle Arthur back from that brink. There is no one that deserves rest more than him, but no one he would fight harder to keep, to protect, sharing life with him, in whatever capacity he can. He can’t go now. Not when the feelings between them have only just been shared.

Working through the night, Javier and John repurpose some spare canvas, and create a shelter around Arthur’s wagon, gifting him the privacy and protection of a simple tent, rather than leaving him to suffer in the open. Lanterns are surrendered from the other wagons, and lit within the fabric walls, creating a muffled bubble of candlelight, Arthur’s mottled skin looking all the more sickly with the orange glow.

There’s an eerie quiet in everyone, hushed like the night, a stark absence of conversation, even as they buzz around Arthur’s wagon, like anxious insects, fetching and carrying, flitting nervously around the lanterns. Only a few words are heard in hours, simple questions or acknowledgements, a reassurance that the horses are untacked and grazing, that Sadie and Mary-Beth are journeying into Rhodes at first light to restock supplies and speak to the doctor, that Karen has already turned two moth-eaten old blankets into new pillowcases for Arthur’s bed, and Tilly is fetching water every half hour, to keep the pot boiling. The soiled union suit is taken by Abigail, and burned.

Within the tent, Arthur shivers compulsively, drenched in his own sweat, and doesn’t wake even when Hosea prods into the black crater of his shoulder with the thinnest forceps they can find - a tool of Kieran’s, something for removing fragments of a horse’s shattered teeth, apparently - managing to find several buckshot pellets lodged within, like pepper kernels thrown haphazardly into a stew pot. The wadding from the cartridge is buried deep in the hole too, bloodied and black with powder, and the smell is somehow worse when the infected flesh beneath hits the air, damp and dizzying. As Hosea douses the wound in whatever antiseptic they can find, Charles gets to work washing and then sewing the cut across his left ribcage closed, as neatly as he can with his fingers so set on trembling.

As the hours drag on, the wall he’s built around what’s happening continually wobbles, weakening with every rattle of Arthur’s breath, every muted groan that sounds through his sleep, every new injury they find amongst the indistinguishable mess of his body. The dam threatens to break after each clatter of buckshot, falling from Hosea’s forceps to a tin tray, each inhale of stringent ointment, each cigarette burn he finds on Arthur’s skin. He bites his bottom lip, hard, and focuses on dressing the newly-stitched wound - a bullet graze, or so it looks like.

It’s hard to tell what exactly made most of the injuries, except those obviously boot-shaped, burnt into the thin skin of his ribs, the spread spots of handprints on his upper arms, unknown fingers gripping hard enough to rupture blood vessels. His body is a mosaic of bruises and bleeding, jagged shards of colour interlocking across his whole torso, his abdomen, like gaudy paving slabs, purple and yellow and red. There are poorly-scabbed cuts bevelled into the skin of his ankles, and no matter how hard Charles tries to keep them warm, resting slightly raised on a spare pillow and rubbed regularly with a blanket, Arthur’s feet stay swollen, tinged with grey and blue. Like the blood supply was stoppered for too long to properly recover, leaving his toes cold and unresponsive.

They don’t speak much, but when he does, Hosea theorises the cuts are from shackles, voice small and hard.

Like Arthur was chained, kept imprisoned while his injuries festered, left alone in some dark cell. Was he waiting for rescue? Did he pray that someone would find him, and finally give up hope when no one came?

Charles huffs his emotion. His lips twitch, despite how he tries to keep his face still, hands hovering frozen a few inches from Arthur’s stitched side, and Hosea looks up at him from Arthur’s shoulder, his gnarled hands coated in blood, forceps glinting in the light. He sets them down on the tin tray of pellets, and absently strokes over Arthur’s blue-black collarbone with a wet rag, squeezing the clean water over the wound below. It runs in pink rivulets down the bruised slope of his breast, caught on the towel they’d laid beneath him.

“You wanna get some sleep?” Hosea asks, gentle. Charles is only a foot away, near the other end of the cot, yet even their hushed voices seem somehow too loud, too out of place, like loudly cursing in a church. “Think there’s one more pellet I can reach. Otherwise...we just gotta wait. You’ve done all you can.”

Stubborn, Charles shakes his head, and for a long moment, can’t look Hosea in the eyes, feeling them burning with furious tears, can’t lift his head to see if Miss Grimshaw is watching them. Shame chokes him, and he watches the lantern light flicker on the canvas walls while he tries to wrestle control back, painfully clenching his teeth as the swell of emotion surges, and then passes. Shoved bodily down into the pit in his gut with the rest. He can break down later. Whenever this night ends.

“I won’t leave him,” he manages, meagre, and opens the tin of ointment he has in his lap, dipping two fingers in to spread the paste on Arthur’s stitches, trying to lose the urge to scream in the heady scent of the poultice - coneflower and yarrow, bitterroot and purple mallow flowers.

Hosea watches him cover the wound, pressing a gauze pad to the site with one hand while he unravels a length of bandage with the other. “Here,” Hosea says, and shifts the dead weight of Arthur’s shoulders just high enough from the bed to let Charles wrap the bandage around his ribcage, securing the pad in place.

“Thanks,” Charles mumbles, and fastens the bandage with a safety pin, uncaring that Hosea sees his hand linger for too long on Arthur’s stomach as he refastens the buttons of his union suit over his abdomen, allowing himself just a few moments of tenderness, safe in the knowledge that Arthur’s still breathing. For now.

“I mean it,” Hosea says, even gentler than before. The same sadness that Charles feels sits heavily on Hosea’s shoulders, like a layer of dust coats a bookcase, and again Charles is grateful that it’s him there, sharing in an unsaid love of the man before them. Anyone else’s soft words might rankle, serve only to annoy him, but Hosea’s don’t. He doesn’t feel uncomfortable next to Hosea. “You brought him home. You’ve done more than-”

“I’ll sleep later, Hosea. Please.”

With a soft exhale, Hosea relents, and picks up the forceps again. “Okay,” he says, not unkindly, and silently goes back to work. 

When Charles looks over, Miss Grimshaw’s eyes are closed. She’s seated in a rickety chair, her elbow on the square table where Arthur’s satchel has ended up, strap tangled around a standing frame containing a photo of his mother. Whether she is truly asleep, or simply giving them privacy, Charles can’t tell.

 

The sun rises. Surprising, somehow, as if a reprieve from the darkness was unexpected, time frozen in the wake of something so terrible it was enough to halt the sun itself. But the dawn still comes, and light returns.

It could easily be days after he first set out into the Heartlands, impossible to determine, the night seeming endless even as the sky blushes with the morning and light floods the rippling surface of Flat Iron Lake, streaming past the makeshift tent flaps covering Arthur’s wagon. Even as day breaks, the camp is silent in a shared and unspoken horror.

Hosea leaves him be when the worst of the wounds are clean and dressed, trying to eke out a few more hours of sleep, and Charles finds himself alone with Arthur when Miss Grimshaw follows suit, stepping out of the dark, ointment-perfumed space and out into the morning, satisfied that her watch is over. He sits on the ground, and leans on Arthur’s cot, just breathing. A long-forgotten deputy badge is embedded in the mud beside his crossed knees, lost underneath the bed.

His shoulder is heavily dressed. They’d packed the crater tight with gauze, and covered it with more, keeping it in place with a bandage wrapped under Arthur’s arm. It’s not ideal. Nothing about it is. But Arthur is still breathing, when the last of the sunrise’s pink and orange glow has faded into blue, the last notes of dawn’s chorus having been sung, and for Charles, that’s enough.

It feels like there’s nothing left inside his chest. He was sure as soon as he was alone, the emotions he’s been wrestling would overwhelm him, and he’d break down, but as it is he barely has the energy to think coherent thought. Like the pit of guilt and fear and terror in his gut has swallowed everything else with it, drowning his heart, his brain, his lungs, leaving nothing in the space left behind. It doesn’t matter. Screaming won’t help.

He rests his head on Arthur’s bed, cradled on his own bent arm, and studies the blackened tips of his fingers, the split fingernails. As if he’d fought something, hard, grappling for freedom, just as he had in that cornfield, ripping his own skin in his fierce instinct to survive.

What horror had he been through? What did they do to him?

This is the second time he’s seen Arthur closer to death than not. It’d probably be the sort of tragedy to be so hopelessly ridiculous as to be amusing, if he was sure Arthur truly was going to live, rather than tumbling over the cliff when he’s not looking, and not there to drag him back. All he feels instead is exhaustion.

“You’ve made a fool of me, Mister Morgan,” he whispers, and sets his free hand over Arthur’s on the cot, still. The flesh is cold, slightly greyer than his other hand, and who knows what damage the shot to his shoulder has caused? He hadn’t even got that far in his mental processing. If the hand is even usable, it’ll be a wonder. A small miracle.

Even meeting Arthur was a miracle. Everything about him, about them, is a tapestry of miracles, with Charles swept helplessly up in the middle, falling irrevocably and unequivocally in love somewhere along the way.

What stranger miracles are there than that?

It’s only been a few months since he barely knew Arthur. Came unspeaking and suspicious into the gang of misfits and collected oddities, and first met him, rough and coarse and too flippant to be taken seriously.

His first impression hadn’t been good. Charles had thought he was just another thug, joyless and violent, living out his power fantasy in a world even he, white-skinned and able to shoot straight, somehow couldn’t fit into. A sullen and selfish lout, hiding his penchant for thieving and killing behind Dutch’s ‘code’. No better than Micah.

He was wrong. He was spectacularly, exquisitely wrong.

“A while back, when we found this spot,” Charles says, barely audible, looking up the slope of Arthur’s chest to his slack expression. He shifts in sleep, eyelids twitching. “I told you how...I relied on isolation. It kept me safe. Kept people away.”

It seems so long ago now. Just a matter of weeks, and yet the course of everything seems to have changed. Like mountain streams that somehow meet in a boundless sea of rock, with infinite paths possible, spiting the earth’s natural shift and sway to flow together, stronger as one than apart.

“I’ve...been alone a long time. Being part of a group was easier, but it was functional. Served a purpose. I didn’t...believe in it. In family. Trust.” 

Charles sighs, unsure why he feels the need to talk at all, especially since Arthur can’t hear him. It’s never been his strong suit, talking. And still feels redundant, as if his words are unnecessary by default, and are piling up around him, clumsy, tripping over themselves. “I trust myself. It’s kept me alive. I used to think...that was all there was for me. Just...exile. Never fitting anywhere, never wanting to try. Never letting myself...care. But now...”

He sighs again, soft, and feels his breath on his own hand, still carefully placed on Arthur’s. The bruised fingers twitch, and Charles flicks his gaze up to Arthur’s pale face. “What happened?” he asks the blank expression, no more than a whisper, and folds his fingers around Arthur’s palm, holding his hand. “You did.”

Eyes shutting for a moment, Charles focuses on the sound of Arthur’s breathing, raspy but regular. He can feel his pulse through his fingers, still too fast, but again, steady at least. When had Arthur become so desperately important to him? How did it happen so suddenly? How had something as simple and tacit as a heartbeat, someone else’s heartbeat, become more vital to his survival than his own?

“A part of me wants to run,” Charles whispers, letting his thumb stroke the middle knuckle of Arthur’s first finger, up and down over the point of it. “Run and not look back. Return to...not caring.”

With a soft breath, Arthur shifts, and his fingers curl into his own palm, trapping Charles’ in the middle. A huff, looking up at him again, and Charles’ lips move. Not a smile, not really close, but Arthur would recognise it as one anyway, seeing far more beneath his expressions now than most ever have. 

Maybe he should expect the miraculous, after everything they’ve been through.

“It’s almost frightening. How much I feel. Feelings I’ve never felt,” he says plainly, thumb resuming its stroking of Arthur’s knuckle. “Sometimes I want to run from it. Go back to being alone. But, I was wrong before.”

Mouth dry, he swallows. Unstoppers his throat. “It didn’t keep me safe. It just...kept me alone. And I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

He sighs, and lets his sincerity be, feeling it hanging in the air around the wagon. It’s not in his nature to be embarrassed, not exactly; honesty comes easy to him, often being accused of too much rather than the opposite. When he speaks, he does so simply, if he can, and yet Charles is unused to voicing so much feeling in the first place. There’s very rarely been anyone to listen. Arthur does though. Charles always feels heard by Arthur. Even sleeping, so deep in his own sickness, Charles somehow doesn’t feel ignored.

“I’m a fool,” he mumbles, and shuts his eyes again, Arthur’s thigh warm against the top of his head. A long and weary exhale, and Charles waits for the pang of upset to pass, the foundations keeping him steady to stop quaking, and though he can hear the words he wants to say in his head, the three words he’s become more sure of than he’s ever been of anything, he saves them for another time. Needs to believe there’ll be another time. That Arthur will wake. That he’ll come back to him.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore, if I can be with you instead,” he whispers, and leans slightly forward, lifting their joined hands. “So...get better. Because you’re stuck with me.” Tentative, he presses a kiss to Arthur’s fingers, clasped snugly in his, before gently resting his arm back on the bed.

Gradually, his thumb slows. It’s been over 24 hours since he last slept, and the exhaustion of the past day weighs heavily on him, mind just as drained as his body. He sinks into sleep, folded over, half on the floor and half on Arthur’s cot, Arthur’s hand in his.

 

The next he knows, Miss Grimshaw is clearing her throat behind him, peeking around one of the fabric sheets shrouding Arthur’s wagon. Sunlight streams in, a bright wedge cut into the grass and over Charles’ hunched figure.

He picks up his head with a soft inhale as he wakes, and catches the tail of her polite apology as she enters the space, haggard face pale and tight. Her hair has come loose from her high pompadour, a few errant curls hanging around her shoulders, a rare show of disarray, by Susan’s own standards.

“He’s okay,” Charles murmurs, in reply to a question that wasn’t asked. Hesitating, he lets go of Arthur’s hand, and brushes his own hair back from where it’s fallen around his forehead, slowly clambering to his feet from the ground. His legs are still asleep. “Still breathing.”

Susan smiles, a wan, humourless thing, barely noticeable with the thin purse of her lips. “He’s a strong one, our Arthur,” she muses, terse and quiet, and simply stares for a moment at his still-sleeping body on the cot, expression unreadable. 

Charles isn’t sure he remembers ever speaking to Miss Grimshaw for any length of time. She’s as fierce as she is protective, the personification of ‘tough love’, somehow both maternal and mercenary at once.

Her gaze flickers to him, and she clears her throat again. “Forgive me, Mister Smith, do- Do you need anything? Mrs Adler returned from Rhodes not long ago.”

Charles blinks, brushing off his breeches. It seems like he’s been made head nursemaid. Probably at his own stubborn, silent insistence. “Uh. Thank you, Miss Grimshaw. Is there water boiling? I’d...like to make him some tea.”

“Tea? I’m sure I can manage to make tea, sir.”

“For his fever. I’ve got some herbs. They’ll help.”

“Oh. W-Well, of course, I can have Miss Jackson bring some water-”

“No, I’ll go, thank you. I need to stretch my legs,” Charles says, shifting his weight on his aching knees.

Sleeping in such an odd position, even for just a few hours, wasn’t the best idea. 

Miss Grimshaw nods, and her gaze drifts to Arthur again, eyes full of some emotion she can’t vocalise. Smoothing out the creases in her skirt, she sits again in the chair by the table, resuming her vigil.

“I’ll watch over him, Mister Smith,” she says, quiet. “You can be sure of that. Get some rest in the meantime.”

Charles doesn’t have the heart to tell her how much he vehemently does not want to leave Arthur, especially not to get more sleep. As if he could stomach languishing in his own bedroll while Arthur might be breathing his last. Instead, he says his thanks, and brushes his hair back again as he picks up his pack, parting the makeshift tent flaps.

“Oh- Mister Smith?”

“Yes?”

Susan is looking at him, eyebrows pulled together, her wide cheeks seeming to sag with the weight of Arthur’s suffering, dark shadows beneath her eyes dragging her expression down. “Thank you,” she says, quiet. “For bringing him home.”

Momentarily still, Charles eventually nods, and pushes his way out of the tent.

The morning sun hits him like a slap. He squints, holding one hand up to the glare as his eyes adjust. It’s a warm summer day, hazy with heat and patchy cloud, the moisture from the lake rising into thick humid air. Despite the fair weather, a noticeable silence hangs over the camp, the rare few conversations kept hushed and whispered, like mourners at a funeral, congregating in black groups around a newly-filled grave.

For a place usually so lively, humming with background noise even when quiet, it’s eerie enough to seem transcendental, like the normal has been replaced by something otherworldly, the pastoral clearing beside the lake becoming somewhere unrecognisable.

He looks to Strauss’ wagon, and Trelawny grants him a polite tip of his hat as Charles begins to head through the camp, hoping to avoid as many of the others as possible, sure he’ll have to answer a thousand questions if he doesn’t.

At that moment, Mr Pearson appears, hustling into his field of view and wheezing like a church organ with woodworm. His face is sweaty and red, and by the looks of it, he hasn’t slept much either. Perhaps none of them have.

“Mister Smith- Mister Smith, I’m glad I caught you, how is he?” he asks, words knocking into one another with how quickly he tries to speak them.

“Alive,” Charles says, stubbornly frank.

“Oh- Oh good, that’s very good news, that’s better than the opposite, I’m so relieved, I am, I- I admit I was fearing the worst.”

“The worst may still come,” Charles says, and almost feels bad for how Pearson’s expression crumples, collapsing on itself like a half-filled sack. “Time will tell.”

“O-Of course,” Pearson says, morose.

He dabs at his forehead with the stained hem of his apron, letting out a long sigh. “I truly am so very sorry, Mister Smith, if I’d known- If I’d thought there was any danger, I- I’m a buffoon, sir, a rightly fool, and I will apologise to Mister Morgan at the very first opportunity. If you hadn’t gone-”

“Luckily, I did.”

“Yes. Yes, quite. I, uh-”

“It’s not your fault, Pearson.”

Expression caught, pinched in the middle of his brows, Pearson is silent for a long moment. Then he sighs, deflating. “Thanks, Charles,” he says, voice lower, less manic at least. “Thanks. I… I think I needed to hear that. You did a good thing, bringing him back.”

Charles shrugs, halfhearted. “He’d do the same for any of us.”

“Very true,” Pearson agrees, and nods to himself, heading back towards the chuckwagon, slow and solemn. “Very true.”

Watching Pearson go, Charles meanders through the camp, still strangely devoid of conversation. Even Cain seems affected by the mood, lying with his head on his paws in the shade of the great oak tree, tail still. His eyebrows pick up as Charles appears in his vision, watching him make his way through the tents, but nothing comes of it, and he harrumphs a sigh, like the weight of the world is on his narrow shoulders.

Since the stewpot is occupied, the main campfire has been repurposed into a boiler for a large cast iron pot of water, hanging from a frame above the pyramid of flames. The pot bubbles gently, simmering, thick plumes of steam rising with the humid air, and a few of the camp’s residents are sitting silently around it, as if answers can be found in the rolling fog.

Most of the others are absent, dotted randomly around the Point, from the inlet in the north to the wide woodland barring their secluded terrace from the rest of Scarlett Meadows in the south. Charles takes it as a good thing. The quicker he can get back to Arthur, the better he’ll feel, and that’s more likely if the others are distracted.

He waves politely to Tilly and Mary-Beth, who are sewing beneath their wagon canopy, and passes through Hosea’s lean-to, rifling through his own belongings for a tin mug and a tea strainer, before entering the circle around the campfire, everyone sitting just far enough from the fire to avoid the worst of the heat. Hosea is seated in a chair, sipping coffee, Lenny and Sadie sharing the log, while Karen sits on an upturned crate. Sean sits on the ground, and John is beside him, pulling up tufts of grass and throwing the ripped shreds towards the fire, brow furrowed in thought.

Murmuring a simple greeting into the mournful quiet, Charles kneels beside the fire, and removes a copper kettle from the bail hanger next to the pot itself, in lieu of a proper teapot. Pearson might boil _him_ if he asked for a teapot, of all things. Cowboys and their coffee. The mere concept of tea is some kind of sin to most of them.

The group has likely been updated on Arthur’s condition by Hosea, and Charles is grateful for the lack of questions, silently wrapping his hand in a protective tea towel as he fills the kettle, to mind the burning steam. Nobody asks what he’s doing. 

He searches through his pack, and brings out two bundles of plant matter, several sprigs tied together in each small bale. They’re weeds, tangled and dry, and thankfully not long picked, the stems a chaotic twist of buds and flowers, leaves still slightly furred in new growth. Careful, he breaks the plants into the kettle, a healthy handful of both wild four o’clock, with clustered purple flowers, and yellow gumweed, blooming with miniature suns. The former for fever, the latter for dehydration and healthy kidneys.

If there is something positive to be taken from spending so long alone, it’s how isolation forces knowledge, a working understanding of how to keep himself alive when potentially miles from civilisation. His mother had passed down generations of herbal medicine to him, even by the time she died, and Charles is sure he’d be a hundred times dead without it.

Swirling in the hot water, the flowers and leaves are left to steep, Charles sitting back on his heels out of the fire’s heat while he waits.

“Gentlemen.”

His head snaps up. Dutch is striding up to the circle, voice too jovial for the grim quiet. 

“And ladies,” he adds, gesturing to Karen and Sadie, tipping the brim of his hat. No one else turns to look at him. It doesn’t seem to matter, and he holds his hands wide to all of them, cheerful and as plainly ignored as a politician giving a speech in a school.

“Well, I ain’t sure I’ve ever seen a sea of sourer faces,” he says, chuckling, high in his voice. “We’ve got something good down here! Fair weather, fair company, and no one will have thought to follow us down this wa-”

“When was you gonna tell us, Dutch?”

Dutch’s voice is cut off as if shut in a drawer. His hands hang awkwardly in front of him for a second, before they fall, and he shifts his gaze to John, narrowing his eyes. “What was that, son?”

John stares back at him, fingers still ripping up the grass. “When was you gonna tell us? That Arthur was missing?”

The workings of Dutch’s brain are plain on his face, and he shifts his weight, crossing his arms over his red silk waistcoat like a robin’s red breast, features tightening into the aquiline intensity of a Roman statue. “My dear boy, Arthur wasn’t missing-”

“Right,” Sean chirps, brandishing one hand, “‘Cause he was fuckin’ kidnapped, Dutch.”

Gaze flicking over, Charles almost expects Hosea to cuff Sean’s ear - he’s seen him do worse for less - but Hosea simply looks up over his coffee mug, seemingly letting the impudence slide. His face is heavy, like tiny sandbags are dragging the skin down underneath his eyes, haggard like a whorl in tree bark.

“Mind who you’re speaking to, Mister Macguire,” Dutch growls, voice slipping low.

“But he ain’t _wrong_ , Dutch,” Karen says, plaintive, expression bobbing anxiously between annoyance and upset. “It ain’t bad manners to ask what went on. Arthur-” She huffs, belying her emotion, turning her eyes down to the floor. “I ain’t seen many men look like that and still be breathing.”

Again, the others simply look at Dutch, a crowd of pigeons waiting for a morsel of bread, silently agreeing with every word said. Dutch looks back at them. He takes a second just to blink at the group, and then restarts whatever motor is keeping him running, churning back into motion.

“Arthur is going to be fine,” he says briskly, convincing as salesman patter. “He is here now, and he is safe-”

John scoffs, and throws a handful of grass shards at the fire. “You get a good look at him?” he asks, voice wheezing with how forceful it is, buzzing like a hornet in a jar. “You said he was runnin’ errands!”

Bristling, Dutch simply stares at him, face like a shard of flint. “Now, I-”

“Now, turns out he didn’t show up after your meetin’ at all! You didn’t think that was strange, Dutch? A meeting with _Colm O’Driscoll_ and you don’t think it’s strange Arthur goes missing?” John demands, anger infectious, smouldering in all of them.

All eyes stick to Dutch, like a group of schoolchildren being reprimanded, complicitly quiet and refusing to give up the guilty one among them, defiant in their silence.

John isn’t finished. “In them mountains, back after Blackwater, you sent Arthur and Javier to find me after- How long?”

“Two days,” Hosea mumbles, grave, low in his voice.

“Two days! But we was just- Sittin’ here, for near _five_ , while Arthur was bein’ tortured!”

“He ain’t no fool neither,” Sadie chips in, shaking her head. “He knew somethin’ was up ‘fore he even left. They’d’ve killed him, no doubt. If Charles hadn’ta gone for him…”

There’s a murmur of agreement. Charles stares at the kettle, expression deliberately empty, shut tight like the gate into a graveyard.

“I- All due respect, Dutch,” Lenny says, and looks guilty for it before he’s even started, gaze downcast. “If we’d known the situation, we coulda decided it sounded wrong and… Gone to find him sooner. Saved some of this from happening.”

“He’s a sour old prick, but- He’s our sour old prick. He’s our Arthur. Y’all came to get me when I was wit’ them bounty hunters,” Sean adds, frowning. “Not that I couldn’ta handled it-”

“That is _enough_!”

Dutch is breathing hard, expression like a thunderclap. His nostrils flare, and he has to visibly rein himself in, eyes shut for a moment as he breathes, face ruddy like a varnished apple, like his blood pressure is about to pop. 

Caught in the middle, pressed against the oppressive heat of the fire and the tension trembling in everyone, Charles simply listens, and watches the pot of tea, as if willing it to swallow him.

He agrees, of course he does, and the proud thrill of vindication is a sweet feeling, but it niggles at him too. It’s not just him seeing Dutch’s glaring error, the abject lack of any critical thinking whatsoever. Whereas before he might have been able to convince himself it was his own affection for Arthur that was clouding his judgement, now it’s obvious - the others noticed too. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand, and all the more concerning.

“Now, I admit,” Dutch starts, voice thin as a knife edge, hands held palms forward. Placating. “Micah and I, we didn’t predict this happening. I admit that. And when we acted, it was ignorant of the fact we hadn’t predicted that outcome.”

That’s not an apology, Charles thinks to himself. He peers surreptitiously inside the kettle.

“Arthur ended up hurt, and I am truly, deeply upset by it. But it shows, more than ever, that some people in this world don’t deserve forgiveness. I see that. Colm O’Driscoll? He don’t deserve bein’ treated like he’s a sane, or rational individual! This proves he ain’t!”

John blinks like an owl who’s been woken up in the middle of the day, both confused and annoyed. Glances at Hosea. “I don’t get what that has to do with Arthur-”

“No, you don’t,” Dutch says, sharp.

He starts to pace. A few steps to each side, brandishing his hands, jerking like a wooden puppet. “You don’t _get_ what this shows us movin’ forward! You don’t get that we represent everything Colm, these Pinkertons, and all else that’s chasing us, we represent everything they fear.”

Gesticulating still, he turns, and paces to the other side of the circle. “We’re gonna see tough times, I promise you that, and we seen it here with poor Arthur. Sometimes, we make mistakes. We are just humans, fallible, and imperfect, that is true. But if we stick together, if we stay tight now… Now is not the time for _doubters_.”

“Ain’t nobody doubting, Dutch,” Hosea says wearily.

“I _care_ ,” Dutch snaps, voice cracking wildly. “About all of you. _All_ of you! Like my own kin.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles sees Sean share a glance with John. Dutch doesn’t notice, turning on his heel and pacing some more, orbiting the group in a half-circle, like a shepherd dog corrals sheep.

“Don’t none of you ever doubt that. I ain’t never gonna leave you, John. Nor you Sean, young Lenny, Miss Jones. Not you neither, Mrs Adler! No one here. And I ain’t never left you Hosea. Arthur knows that. Knowing that… Relying on that- That’s paradise. And together we have it.”

For a few moments, the only sound is the simmering water, trickling inside the pot. Nobody is looking at each other, conspicuously avoiding eye contact, and Charles is sure the tea has steeped enough by now but doesn’t dare make to leave, not trusting what he’d do if Dutch decided to call him out on his ‘doubting’.

Dutch finishes his walk-by a short distance from John, and looks down at him, capturing attention as intensely as if it’s a private audience, despite the multiple pairs of eyes on him. His hands come to rest on his belt, pushing his chest out, exaggerating the already stark difference in height between him standing and John sitting on the ground six feet below.

“Do you understand, son?” he asks, and John seems powerless to look away, caught in whatever snare Dutch sets in every speech, fixed to his eyes.

“I guess...”

“No, not ‘you guess’,” Dutch hisses, suddenly spitting like a cobra. He throws his hands. John’s teeth clack together as he shuts his mouth. “Guessin’ is _doubt_. Doubt is the end. We got no time for doubters! _‘Yes, Dutch’_.”

For a second, Charles can only see John as he would have been when he first met Dutch. How old was he? Thirteen? Younger? The same age as he himself was when he left his father. From the weary familiarity in John’s expression, worn-in like old leather, a pattern of behaviour is recognisable. Maybe they’re so used to it, nobody notices anymore. He’s sure the same can be said for Arthur.

To Charles though, the interaction is just another cause for concern, digging uncomfortably in his head like boring yellow jackets, thrumming with anxiety.

He wants to get back to Arthur.

Dutch snaps again. “Say it!”

Seeming to deflate with his exhale, John flares his nostrils, looking for a second at the fire. The air strains with the heavy weight of unspoken voices, creaking, a vicious and palpable silence over all of them, like the moment before an earthquake. Then his gaze slides back to Dutch, chin tipped up, a miniscule gesture of defiance. “ _Yes_. Dutch.”

Nodding, Dutch keeps his stare for a while longer, and his expression softens into something close to care, greasy like melted lard. “It’s hard,” he says, lilting. “I know it’s hard. But together…” His hands come up, and he addresses the whole group. “Together! We can achieve beautiful things... Alone? We’re sickly bison… Waiting on the wolves.”

Satisfied, he lets his hands drop, and nods once more before turning, and leaving the campfire. No one moves until the shining buttons on the back of his waistcoat have disappeared from view, like every one of them is holding their breath, striving to break the surface of the water.

Charles clears his throat, quiet. He checks on the tea. Getting to his feet, he brushes grass from his knees, and carefully picks up the kettle, hesitating for a moment before making to leave. “Excuse me,” he mutters to the assembled silence.

Heading back towards the other side of the clearing, Charles catches Sean’s incredulous voice, rising from the campfire. “Did that make no fuckin’ sense to anyone else, or is it just me?”

“Mister Smith!”

Miss Grimshaw appears around the side of Arthur’s wagon. Her hand holds up her skirts. “Mister Smith! What took you so long? I think he’s- Oh, just, come and see.”

Already fearing the worst, Charles hurries to the wagon tent behind her, and steps into the dim candlelight inside. The lanterns cast irregular shadows, highlighting the gaunt hollows of Arthur’s cheeks, the bags beneath his eyes, and dancing as he shudders and rolls, caught in what looks like a nightmare.

“I daren’t wake him,” Miss Grimshaw says, and stands back as Charles sets the kettle and mug down on the bedside table, giving him space to go to Arthur’s side. He kneels on the ground by the cot again, and takes Arthur’s hand.

Somehow he’s managed to tangle the blanket down around his feet and half on the floor, tossing and turning in bed, shivering violently. His clean union suit is dark with sweat patches, breath running away from him as whatever he’s dreaming about takes hold, brows knit together.

“Here.” Miss Grimshaw soaks one of the washcloths in the cold water basin by the bed, and wrings it out before passing it to Charles, who folds it across Arthur’s forehead.

“Arthur,” Charles says, soft but firm. “Arthur, I-” He hesitates, feeling Susan’s presence far more keenly than he had Hosea’s. “I’ve got you. You need to wake up.”

As if on cue, Susan averts her gaze, and clears her throat. “I’ll leave you with him, Mister Smith,” she says, polite as always. “Holler if… If you need us.”

“Thank you, Miss Grimshaw,” Charles replies, and squints as the sun is let in for a moment as she leaves, dazzled by the light.

To his side, Arthur groans, panting all the more. His head turns, thrashing on his thin pillow, and Charles squeezes his hand, the other holding the cold cloth on his brow.

“Arthur, wake up. It’s just me. You’re okay.”

A whimper, Arthur kicking his blanket. “Arthur,” Charles repeats, insistent, squeezing his hand hard. “Arthur, wake up. You’re okay, I’ve got y-”

With a gasp, Arthur startles awake, wide-eyed and instantly terrified, kicking his heels on the cot. His free hand comes up to his chest, protective, and he blinks blindly in the dim light, gaze in all directions.

A short burst of horror, and Charles realises there’s no white left in his eyes. There’s only red, spider-like and angry, like his eyeballs have been boiled and smashed back into his head, leaving only a florid garish pulp in their place. Embedded in the sticky white pallour of his face, they’re even more horrifying. “Hey, shh- Shh, I’ve got you. It’s just me. It’s Charles.” 

Charles gently strokes over his hand, kneeling up into Arthur’s field of view, perching on the edge of his cot. His shot eyes flicker rapidly, muscles twitching, unable to focus on anything, and still he heaves for breath, face alive with fear. “It’s me,” Charles says again, tentative. “I’ve got you.”

“Ch...Charles?”

His face is white. Slowly, his gaze settles on Charles, swimming unfocused in front of him, and recognition dawns like a new sunrise, cresting the horizon in a gold burst. “Charles,” he gasps, and his right hand appears on Charles’ cheek, clinging even as he trembles, desperate relief flooding his expression. “You- Charles…”

“Hi,” Charles whispers, and Arthur huffs a wan smile in reply, finally relaxing, hand hungry on his face as if to make sure he’s real, anxiously touching his hair, his cheekbone, his jaw. His breathing starts to even out, legs falling still in the crumpled blanket. “There… You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Blinking, Arthur tries to look around the makeshift tent, eyes slow with lingering drowsiness, with pain, throbbing in his head like a thousand hammers. He’s barely awake at all, drifting in the space between conscious and not, unable to truly process his surroundings, understand anything that’s happening or has happened. Fear rolls off him with the sweat, streaming down the parts of his chest not covered with bandages, sticking in his hair, and he looks even less human than he did when asleep, pale and jerking, resembling something that’s been left outside for a decade, withered from sickness and neglect.

Charles simply strokes his deadened hand, rhythmic and reassuring, and settles beside him, unable to help how he stares at Arthur’s face, relief pinching his eyebrows together. That he’s awake, no matter how sleepy. No matter how he looks. That he’s alive.

Arthur’s agitated gaze flicks to him, and he stares back, hand falling to fist weakly in Charles’ shirt, holding his shoulder, fingers flexing, unable to keep still. “I’ve got you,” Charles whispers again, and squeezes his hand, voice wobbling with how he tries to keep it steady, heavy with emotion.

Faltering, Arthur wets his lips, and rasps Charles’ name again, starting to sink back into his pillow, the terror of the nightmare passing as easily as a breeze. His hand falls to the bed, sleep pulling, beckoning, until something else stirs, and he looks up at Charles again, breath hitching. 

“It’s a trap,” he rasps, pulling weakly at Charles’ hand, fumbling, needing him to understand. His red eyes widen, sunk in like welts within his skull, like someone has replaced his eyeballs with ripe tomatoes, and crushed them for good measure, swollen and twitching. “S’a trap, Charles- Dutch… Dutch can’t-”

He takes a jarring breath, panic flaring again as memory resurfaces, blinking, scattered and shivering. “Dutch gonna… Law’s waitin’- Can’t come-”

“Shh... “ Charles hums, stroking the cloth back over Arthur’s forehead, soothing the sweating heat of his fever. “It’s okay. You’re home now. Everyone is safe.”

“Dutch- I-”

“Dutch is safe, Arthur. You’re safe.”

“I-I’m…”

Arthur suddenly frowns, and if possible, his face seems to pale even further, what little colour he has draining from his face like diluted ink, swirling out of him in a wash. “I’m...”

“You’re okay.”

“I’m- Gonna be sick-”

“What?”

“Mmh-”

Barely moving in time, Charles grabs for the nearest container he can see, pushing an empty water pail Tilly had brought in into Arthur’s way as he vomits over the side of his cot. 

He sits, frozen on the floor, and holds the bucket for him, Arthur’s hands white-knuckled on the edge of his mattress and trembling so hard his chin knocks the metal pail, teeth chattering together as he retches, loud and ugly.

It lasts a few minutes. Charles shushes his groans and grating whimpers, unable to do much else but wait, the bucket weighed down in his hold, trying to avert his eyes to the middle distance, grant Arthur some modicum of privacy as he empties his stomach in front of him.

Once it’s over, Arthur simply crumples back to the bed, tears streaming down his cheeks with the effort, skin so pale his veins make him look like a wheel of blue cheese, criss-crossed with sickly colour. He groans, chest fighting for air. His eyelids are barely open.

Charles takes a breath.

He sets the bucket aside, and kneels up to replace the cold cloth on Arthur’s forehead, watching how his eyelashes flutter with the respite from his fever. Another cloth is wrung out and used to wipe his face, as gently as possible, and finally discarded with the bucket to be washed, leaving his skin damp but clean.

“There,” Charles says softly, and rests his hand on Arthur’s forehead to press at the cloth, brushing his fingers through his hair while he’s there. “Better.”

“Mhm,” Arthur grunts, already halfway asleep, frowning deeply.

“You good?”

“Mm,” he hums, breathy, as if it was meant to be a chuckle but the energy wasn’t there to fulfil it.

“I know,” Charles says, stroking through his hair, greasy with grime and days of neglect. He doesn’t much care. Arthur’s beautiful to him. “But I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

Keeping contact with Arthur’s hand, Charles manages to pour a mug of tea one-handed, filtered through the strainer to remove any clumps of leaves or flowers, and then helps Arthur lean up enough to drink it before sleep takes him completely, keeping his trembling fingers steady. Arthur wrinkles his nose at the taste, and doesn’t comprehend when Charles explains what it’s for, but enjoys the low rumble of Charles’ voice all the same, a comfort somehow. Soothed, he slowly sips more than expected before needing to lie down again, helpless to try and stay awake against the pull of his exhaustion.

The mug is left beside him on the table, and a canteen of water too, and by the time Charles turns back to him, he’s drifting back to sleep, tucked beneath his blanket, and holding Charles’ hand.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_What stranger miracles are there?_

 

It is morning. All is gold, and honey dew, sweet singing in the grasses. Sugared rushes, bejewelled and glistening, sugar to the grazing does, soft muzzles and breath amongst the heather, the clover and phlox.

Misty sunlight, splendid, gossamer light, is dappled across their backs, juxtaposed parables of gold and brass in tawny coats, ruby rich. They are velvet in lace meadows, unhurried and drifting, their voices hushed, and he is both among them and within them, hooves in the bright grass, nose wet and high-held beneath his summer crown.

Pine and fir bow to his coming. Pronghorn and elk are guests in his halls, the quick marten and fox, the black-tailed rabbit. Warblers sing in his trees, chickadee and tanager, and butterflies share his garden, dancing with the does, their flicking cotton tails. His meadow is painted in golden haze, as sunrise, washed and syrup slick. Lush with gentle life. Turning, ticking forward, mellifluous as plucked music, lyrical lamellae, lazy in the grass.

It is warm. He is fed; and he is happy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur is breathing against his cheek, foreheads leant together. Breathing, beating. Living, still. He could have lost him. He could have never found him, never known what happened. Perhaps stumbled upon his bones one day, curled in the corner of some abandoned place, some sad sepulchre with only gnawing animals to mourn him, thankful for his sacrifice of flesh to feed their own.  
> Would Dutch ever have gone to look for him? If Charles had left a day later, ignored his gut instinct for one more day, would Arthur have died in his cell? In this bed? Would his inaction have laid the earth on Arthur’s freshly-dug grave?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, finally, finally, it's here
> 
> i can't explain how big this thing is, how much effort it's taken to get done, but how much writing this series is giving me too. i work on this monster every single day, i've surpassed my own low expectations of myself, and i'm...kinda proud i managed to get this behemoth finished at all tbh ;v; but you're all troopers, and your comments mean the absolute world to me. thank you for being patient, and thank you for being here with me ♥

_After the dazzle of day is gone,_

 

“It’s...it’s a trap-”

“Shh, Arthur.”

“Trap, Dutch- Dutch can’t-”

“Shh… It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Fear is all Arthur knows, for the first few days. The hours glue themselves together, marked only when he erupts into consciousness, loud and clumsy, retching with how fast he needs to breathe, colliding into awareness like a small bird hits a glass window, smashing itself into the pane and lying twitching on the ground, its tiny life flitting before its starry eyes.

The cycle grows familiar. A few hours of sleep is all he’s allowed, nausea or nightmares shoving him bodily awake to vomit or panic or both, before the tiredness wins; and the pattern starts again.

He burns with the fierce heat of sickness. Shivers, chilled to his bones. Nightmares, fever dreams, glug inside his head, tossing him in bed like flotsam in a jet stream, hands dashed on imaginary rocks, rolling fitfully against the tide. There’s no sense to them, no structure, but he sees red behind his eyes.

“No- No! Dutch-”

“Hey, hey, you’re okay-”

“No! You can’t- Stop-”

“Arthur, it’s me. Wake up, you’re safe.”

“Stop!”

The fear floods his entire body, a stagnant sewer, lined with scum. It dribbles constantly inside him; and when it overflows it’s like a tidal surge, like a glug of water backing up the momentarily open drain. Filth is brought up from the pipe, polluting the water with a half dozen lice, two dead spiders, a handful of rat droppings, and a tub full of things he can’t stand to name or look at, choking and horrifying his body awake.

He kicks, fights, writhing like a hooked eel, and when Charles’ hand finds his arm, a soft and warm weight, reassuring in its familiarity, Arthur flinches so violently away from it that the whole wagon shakes, creaking with his heaving breath, nostrils trembling like a rabbit’s. The fear in his eyes pulses, panting, drowned in red blood. Blue is long forgotten.

It’s hard to witness.

Hour by dreadful hour, it doesn’t get easier. Every hitch in Arthur’s breath, every low whine of pain, every twitch in his abused muscles, weighs heavy on Charles, adding to the already backbreaking load. All he can do is watch, keep his vigil by Arthur’s side, terrified that the next gasp will be his last.

He sleeps when he can, an hour here and there, when Arthur’s shaking stills and his body rests, curled on his own bedroll on the floor next to the cot, dragged over from Hosea’s lean-to when he’d made it clear he wasn’t leaving Arthur, not even to sleep. 

Hosea had looked at him sadly, creases worn into his face like the lines in old leather, and had known there was nothing he could say to argue.

The others drift in and out over the first few days, taking watch, fetching supplies, replenishing the water, but Charles’ presence is almost constant, refusing to leave Arthur for any longer than necessary. It feels like duty somehow, yet also a way of healing, tentatively untangling the knot of how he’d found him, collapsing over Magpie’s shoulder, white and still. As though he was already dead.

It haunts him. In the first quiet moments, between sips of water or the daily cleaning of his wounds, the vomiting and soiled bed clothes, the panic in Arthur when Charles first touches him and he yells to get away, the smell of infection during every bandage change. His breath rattles; his toes are still blue. Red lines his eyes.

It sits behind Charles’ breastbone, as open and angry as Arthur’s own injuries, just hidden. Kept buttoned and silent. He can’t recall a more palpable distress, any emotion that’s overtaken him as wholly as this. Not since his mother was taken. Not since that loss has he ever felt so bereft, even with Arthur right in front of him, eyelashes fluttering in his fitful sleep.

There’s so much he wants to tell him. Just in case he never gets another chance.

Yet despite how difficult it is, being there with him and sharing in his pain somehow still feels cathartic. Like the image of him falling from Magpie like a sack of flour, burned into his memory and replayed in horrifying slow motion over and over, can somehow be stripped of its power to hurt if he is there for every moment of recovery, no matter how long it takes.

“N-No- Stop.”

“Shh, Arthur, it’s okay.”

“You can’t, it’s- No-”

“Arthur. It’s me, you’re safe.”

P-Please-”

“Shh, you’re safe.”

Arthur bursts awake like he’s been doused in cold water. Fear swims with his tears, darting, threatening rain clouds, and then there’s Charles. Charles’ face. Charles’ kind eyes, his stoic features, dependable as earth and rich with warmth. He swallows, dry.

“Charles?”

“Just me. You’re okay. You were dreaming.”

Scattered and twitching, Arthur finds his hand and clings to it with his right, clenching and unclenching, fingers always moving.

Even when he does wake up, the dreams linger. Oil on the water surface. Colm’s laughter drifts between his ears, Colm’s fingers push past his underwear, and he doesn’t have the words to voice the turmoil that ticks perpetually inside his head.

“You… You came f-for me?”

Charles looks at him. His jaw tightens. Arthur doesn’t know where he is or what’s happened, mind clattering about in his skull in its anxiety. Memory is intangible, fleeting. “Of course,” he says, soft and placating, not wishing to confuse him any further with unneeded details. “You’re safe now.”

“I… I don’t think D-Dutch is coming,” Arthur mumbles, barely lucid at all, fever snagging at his edges, pulling him back into sleep already. His face is white and sunken, like a waxy old gourd, damp and sickly.

“It’s okay,” Charles replies, because what else can he say. “I’ve got you. You’re safe at camp, that’s what matters. Get some more sleep.”

“Mm,” Arthur grunts, and pulls Charles’ hand with him as he lies back down, unwilling to let him go, keeping it close to his chest.

Charles lets him have it. It belongs to him more than it does to himself. Sinking back to his thin pillow, Arthur keeps it safe in his, and the cycle starts again.

 

“Hurts.”

“I know. Nearly done.”

The hole in Arthur’s shoulder glistens in the candlelight, doused in boiled salt water again and packed with tight wads of gauze. There’s less pus than there was, the smell not half as bad as it was the first time, but looking at it for too long still makes Charles want to shoot something.

It’s grotesquely ugly. The flesh is pink and yellow where the muscle has been blown apart, and despite how he’s tried to clean the gunpowder away from the ragged edges, the black is burnt in, spattered and speckled into Arthur’s breast like ink stippled with a paintbrush. Still, he has to be grateful for small progress. If the skin stays black while the infection is finally eradicated, that’s better than the alternative.

He looks up at Arthur’s face.

White and tired, as he has been for three days, nausea barely allowing him to sleep through the night. And if the nausea lets up, the nightmares take over. Granting him sleep without needing to hunch over a bucket for hours, but leaving him to fend off his mind’s own tricks instead.

Eyelashes fluttering, Arthur looks back at him, red peeking past his eyelids. He doesn’t have the energy to smile, keeping himself still, sure any sudden movement will have him reaching for the bucket once again. Packing the wound is a particularly unpleasant feeling, snagging in his gut.

Charles opens a jar of something green, and smears some of the thick poultice around the edges of Arthur’s wound, careful of the raw skin, the sheer drop where the cartridge tore clear into his flesh and the gauze packing sits snug within. Breathing noisily from his pillow, Arthur frowns, scrunching up his eyes. The surrounding skin is heavily bruised, plum black turning purple, and it aches through his entire torso, felt from the base of his spine to the tips of each finger.

“It’s sage,” Charles says, pragmatic as ever, and sees how Arthur’s clenched face stills, distracted momentarily by his voice. “You’ll smell like a nice roast bird.”

Arthur huffs, voiceless in reply. His tight brow softens, just a tiny bit, listening to something other than the permanent screech of his pain.

“But it’s a good antiseptic,” Charles continues, mindless, just talking to talk. He’s been doing so a lot lately. “I’d like to use some honey.” Wiping his fingers gently on one of the few patches of skin that isn’t black or red, he reaches back for another clean gauze pad, placing it over the wound, a white iceberg in a sticky sea of bruises and burns.

“Mm,” Arthur hums, appreciative.

“Honey has good healing properties - can draw infection from a wound.”

The bandages then, Charles helping Arthur to lean up from the bed just enough that he can pass the roll beneath him, wrapping his chest, under his arms, up over his shoulder. “It’s a bit harder to get hold of, though. Rhodes being...Rhodes.”

He finally secures the bandage, and again watches Arthur’s face, how his expression seems to melt as he rests back on his pillow, grateful the process is over for another day. It has to be done. They both know that. As long as infection lingers in his blood, Arthur’s not safe, and Charles is critically aware of it, insisting on washed hands, on boiled water, on expensive gauze instead of common cloth, no matter what the others think of it. The fact he survived the first night is a miracle in itself; Charles refuses to gamble further on the whims of fate.

“There,” he murmurs, and strokes gently over Arthur’s bare bicep as he pulls up his union suit, buttoning it over his hairy stomach. Arthur slips his right arm in himself, and lets the left hang loose, unable to spare a second of brainpower to care. Even vulnerable as he is, he has little energy to spend on embarrassment. “A prize turkey.”

“Mmh. Thanks,” Arthur says, voice rasping, the corner turning up.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be here.”

“Mm.”

He shifts his weight, turning more onto his good side with a weary frown, soon asleep once more.

 

Sleep becomes a constant for Arthur, and an opportunistic luxury for Charles, snatched in quiet hours, no matter the time of day. It’s hard to tell inside the tent, the glow from the lanterns casting the same shadows on the canvas night and day, and Arthur’s sickness refusing to keep to any kind of schedule. Even the world outside gives him little clue. Time is punctuated only by drowsy words and freshly brewed tea, dressing changes, shivers and sweats, melding together with the quiet of sleep and the heady scent of herbs until there is little meaning left to ‘day’ or ‘night’. The camp stays quiet throughout, as hushed and unfriendly in the daytime as it is in the dark. A shroud covers Clemens Point; the sunlight doesn’t seem to do anything to improve the sombre mood.

In the honey light inside the make-do tent, Charles marks his existence in cycles of sleep and not, in nightmares and nausea, robotic as he strips Arthur’s blankets back and removes the quilts and tarp that make up his mattress, soiled by sweat and vomit and other fluids for the umpteenth time. Another night, or so he assumes. Who knows how many since he brought Arthur back. It becomes mechanical, something he doesn’t have to think about, simply acting and reacting without time for thought or wonder. Cleaning up. Fixing.

The only times he leaves the tent are for his own body’s needs, unsympathetic to his compulsive vigil by Arthur’s bedside, forcing him to eat, drink, wash, use the outhouse. But he only ever leaves in order to return, as soon as possible, combining the trip with fetching clean water, brewing tea, bringing in clean linens and blankets, whatever he can to ensure he doesn’t have to leave Arthur alone for a moment longer than necessary.

The others talk. Despite the mortuary hush lurking over the entire Point, he’s aware of the questions, the gazes that turn away as soon as they’re met by his own eyes, the vocal comments wondering aloud why he spends so much time inside the tent, why he sleeps on the floor next to Arthur, why he had to haul Arthur’s body back to camp by himself, and why more often than not he is found holding Arthur’s hand because isn’t that just a little unseemly?

It bristles, fur stood on end, but he finds he has no spare ounce of energy to care what they think, what the political fallout will be after he so brazenly defied Dutch.

How could he care, when Arthur only clings to life by his broken fingernails.

His cares become mundane. Celebrated is the fact that Arthur only woke up to vomit over the side of the cot twice the previous night, or the fact his urine is a more normal colour, instead of the disturbing shade of brown it was for the first few days. When mumbled words become sentence fragments, his mind waking more quickly, when the recognition in his abused eyes comes faster than before. Worries become pinpoint; the persistent cold of Arthur’s left hand, the possibility that his ankles are fractured, the swollen bruise like a permanent weight over one side of his head, the unfocused spotting in his sight.

Before, he might have been concerned that the camp’s food supply is dwindling, or that he hasn’t donated anything to the tithing box in days. He’d have made the effort to collect firewood, ensure all the horses are fed and watered, given a moment’s thought to the explosive arguments Dutch has with Molly, more volatile than ever.

Now, his worldly concerns don’t extend beyond the walls of Arthur’s wagon tent, lodged there with him as he sleeps, tosses and turns and kicks at his blanket, wakes crying out and sobbing and curled up in pain, unable to bare a mere second of consciousness. He’s the only thing he could care about.

It’s all Charles can do to keep going, let alone what it must be like for Arthur to be living through. His only motivation is to survive another night - or day, it’s impossible to tell - stripping the cot of its dirty sheets and helping Arthur gently back to bed, fetching his water, washing him, dressing his wounds. And holding his hand, unsure whether it’s even felt at all.

 

Another morning, birdsong just audible past the bubble of canvas, Charles rests his head on Arthur’s cot and manages an hour’s nap, comforted when he’s woken and finds Arthur still asleep, breath heavy, face relaxed.

“Mister Smith?” The voice comes again. Charles blinks, shifts to see the tent flaps parting, sunlight streaming in from the world outside.

Abigail stands beyond, and little Jack clings to her skirts with one hand, shy as he peeks past into the dim space around Arthur’s wagon. “Excuse me for disturbin’ you,” she says, and rests one hand on Jack’s head, playing with his hair. “The boy...wanted to see Arthur.”

Unnoticed, Charles slips his hand away from Arthur’s, sitting up a little more formally on the ground against the bed, his bedroll under his feet. “He’s asleep,” he says, apologetic, and never having interacted with enough children to really feel confident talking to them. Not like Arthur. He’s a better parent to Jack than his true father is, by all accounts. “But, uh…”

There’s a piece of paper caught in Jack’s other hand, and the light shining behind it shows the thick outline of some kind of drawing, just visible on the surface. When Arthur had taken him fishing, Jack had drawn a picture for him. Charles remembers seeing it, Arthur showing him afterwards, proud smile on his face. Sad, too. Paternal and grateful, but also sad. Wistful.

“Did you draw him something?” Charles asks, voice soft. Jack nods his mousy head. “That’s...real kind of you, Jack. He’d love to see it.”

Pleased, Jack loosens his vice grip on his mother’s skirts, peering curiously into the tent. “Thanks,” he says shyly, and Abigail strokes through his hair.

“You want to come and sit a while? If it’s okay with your mom.”

Abigail debates for a moment, lips worried as though she’s chewing them inside her mouth, Jack ducking out from beneath her protective hand. “Sure,” she says. “But only a moment, you ain’t had breakfast. And don’t you bother Mister Smith none, nor Uncle Arthur, y’hear? He needs his rest.”

Jack seems happy with this plan, and tiptoes inside the tent as Abigail leaves, sharing a laden look with Charles before she does. She reminds him of Sadie in many ways. A mother bear, fierce and protective. Women deserving far better worlds than this one.

“Uncle Arthur?” Jack asks, lingering by the bedside table with his picture clasped in front of him, frowning at Arthur’s pale face, deep in sleep.

“He’s very tired,” Charles explains, and grasps for something to say, some way he can explain to such a young child. “Real sick too.”

“Ew,” Jack says, scrunching up his nose.

“Very. But he’ll be better after a lot of sleep.”

“Okay.”

Nodding sagely, Jack purses his lips, and sits down on the floor opposite Charles, crossing his legs. He hands out the drawing, clasped in his tiny fingers, gentle so as not to crease the paper. “I made him this.”

“It’s okay if I see?” Charles asks, oddly humbled.

Jack nods again, sure as sure.

The drawing is of Arthur and a horse. Well. It looks more like a very large piebald cat, with an oval face and pointed ears, a pink nose. Perhaps a cow even, but the creature is labelled with an arrow and one word, ‘Magpie’, so Charles reckons it’s meant to be a horse. And it’s not like he himself could draw a horse any better than he could a cat or a cow or anything else, so he has to applaud the artistic effort.

Arthur himself is wearing his old blue shirt, coloured mostly within thick blue crayon lines, and smiling wider than human anatomy could ever allow, a bright white toothy grin spread across a round face, some brown scribbled around his mouth to depict a beard. His limbs are oversized, great pink circles with five lines for hands, big black boots on his feet tucked into his jeans. A black hat atop his head. It’s adorable. A miniature masterpiece.

Charles smiles, for the first time in what seems like months, looking down at the drawing in his hands with unbridled fondness. Imagining the delight on Arthur’s face when he sees it is more comforting than anything in the past days has been. “You drew this? It’s wonderful. You’ve got talent,” he says, and shares his smile with Jack, carefully handing it back to him. “He’ll love it. If you want, you can leave it here and I’ll look after it for when he wakes up.”

“Okay,” Jack says, with another nod, setting the picture down at the head of Charles’ bedroll for safekeeping.

“He showed me the drawing you did for him before,” Charles says, leaning back against the cot again. He keeps his voice quiet, not wanting to disturb Arthur from a rare moment of peaceful sleep. “When you went fishing.”

“Oh yeah!”

“It’s real special to him, that drawing.”

Jack grins, toothy and small, cheeks round as ripe apples. It makes him shy, Charles notices, watching Jack tip his chin down to study the ground underneath them while Charles tries to think of something to say, some way of continuing a conversation with a 4 year old. Carrying on conversations with most adults is tricky enough. And he’s never had to interact with any children, lacking the natural gift for it that Arthur seems to have. Admittedly, it’s slightly daunting. Children always seem deceptively clever, and brutally honest.

“Did you like fishing?” he asks, already feeling like he’s said far too many words today, each one draining a tiny piece of his energy.

“Hm… It was okay.”

With a huffed chuckle, Charles hums. “I don’t like it much either. But Arth- Uncle Arthur really likes it.”

“Where did he go?” Jack asks, pulling up small tufts of grass between his thumb and fingers.

“Uh…” Charles frowns, trying to tread lightly. “Some bad men...tried to hurt him. But he’s home now, so he’ll get better soon.”

“Will you make him better?”

Another small huff, and Charles looks over at Arthur, admiring the scar on one side of his nose, feeling the familiar desire to kiss it. “I’ll try my best,” he says, more to himself than Jack.

Jack still takes it as an acceptable answer, nodding wisely, also looking up at Arthur’s face. His complexion resembles curdled milk, blotchy and pale, swimming, yellowish beneath the surface. Sweating, like he’s been left in the sun too long and is starting to melt. Old scars and blemishes stand out even whiter than usual, and despite the sickly tinge, Charles still only feels affection for him, a deep urge to kiss between his eyebrows, stroke his cheekbone with his thumb.

Jack is looking at him again, tilting his head slightly. Knowing. “You was holding his hand,” he says pointedly, and Charles feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, the odd cold feeling of being noticed. Found out. Even if it is only by a child.

“I was,” he replies.

No point lying to the kid. What good could that do? It’s not anything to be ashamed of.

“Was he having nightmares?” Jack asks, eyes wide in curiosity. “Sometimes, if I have nightmares, or sometimes if I get a tummy ache, Mama holds my hand too, and then I can sleep better. But it’s not…’cause I’m scared, it’s just-” He pulls up a tuft of grass, sprinkling it back to the ground. “Then I sleep better.”

“Sure,” Charles agrees, friendly. “Yes, he’s been having nightmares. Everyone gets scared sometimes, even Arthur. But if someone is there to hold your hand, things don’t seem so scary.”

Thinking about this, Jack nods his head in approval, frowning up at Arthur. The world seems like an even more confusing place for a four year old. Especially their corner of it, frequently violent and inhospitable even to adults. It’s no place for a child. 

“Hold his hand so he gets better faster,” Jack demands, suddenly pointing his stubby finger at Arthur, scowling up at Charles with an expression that’s so intimately Abigail it’s almost funny.

Charles huffs again - he’s being bossed around by a four year old - and purposefully reaches back across the cot to take Arthur’s hand in his, feeling a small surge of affection when Arthur squeezes their hands in his sleep, familiar and comforted, even beyond consciousness. “There.”

“Good!” Jack declares, cheered at once, and clambers up to his feet, satisfied for his part. “I’ll go find Mama now.”

“Okay.” Charles pats the piece of paper by his side. “I’ll keep your drawing safe. Come visit him anytime, he’ll be happy to see you.”

“Bye Uncle Arthur!” Jack says, keeping his voice in a low stage whisper, and waving at Arthur’s sleeping figure.

He pushes at the canvas surrounding the wagon, finding the break to the sun outside. Before leaving, he hesitates, turns, and waves to Charles too. “Bye Uncle Charles!”

“Bye, Jack,” Charles says, and has to huff another small laugh, amused.

He’s never been an uncle. Suddenly in the space of a few minutes, he’s become one. Without a sibling in the world. Bestowed with a great honour, like a knight chosen by a fairytale king.

Shifting closer to Arthur again, Charles lifts their joined hands, and presses a kiss to Arthur’s fingers, folded up in his. Aren’t kisses supposed to make people better too? In which case, hand holding or kisses, he’s happy to provide the best of medical care.

 

It’s a further age before Arthur can stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time. Can manage more words and sips of water, sitting a little higher in bed for a half hour or so, propped with extra pillows, before the exhaustion aches in his sides and his chest, and he’s helped to lie down again. His memory starts to resurface somewhere along the way, gradually emerging as if from a deep slumber, like a bear from the winter chill, and he no longer compulsively warns Charles that his capture is a trap, that Dutch is in danger, unable to remember he’s said it every time he’s woken, a thousand times before.

Otherwise, only a few more details are gleaned from his recovering memory, or learnt in the aftermath of vocal, contextless nightmares. He remembers hanging, upside down, which Hosea had suspected from the state of his eyes, and remembers Colm, the nameless men, their disembodied voices. Pain, and the cold, grey and numb in his fingers. Touches, fleeting phantoms, whiskey, and blood in his hands.

There’s more, Charles knows there is, dark and buried even deeper than that, but he doesn’t push an inch, determined first to bring Arthur through the sickness of infection before he even attempts to address the mental side of his health. Another bridge, to be crossed at another time.

The passage of which is still barely noticeable. What day it is hardly matters. It’s all a great soupy ocean, miles across and gold with the stream of sun through canvas and the glow of the lantern within, with sporadic glimpses of Arthur caught in the waves like buoys in the water, bobbing perpetually onwards with the tide.

Each moment of wakefulness is precious and treasured when it drifts by, even when Arthur bolts awake just to grab for his bucket, or escapes a nightmare to be frightened by Charles himself. When the pain is so great that Arthur can’t breathe, face crumpled inwards, teeth set and solid, eyes ringed red with the persistent threat of tears. As much as it hurts him to do it - hurts so deeply Charles is sure it’s lodged somewhere within the marrow inside his bones to grow with him eternal - he has to put Arthur through more discomfort. Has to insist he sit up to drink even when the nausea threatens to bring it all back, has to help him undress when he can’t bear to be seen. Has to change his dressings, has to unpack and repack the fissure splitting his chest, even when it feels like he’s carving out his own heart as he does it.

He hopes Arthur understands.

“Good,” Charles says, for the hundredth, the thousandth time, voice soft as always, not expecting an answer from the other end of the cot. It’s a distinctly unpleasant ritual for Arthur, enduring the wound-dressing, the mopping of seeped fluid, the stench of his own infected flesh, the pus his body is desperately trying to expel. A relief once it’s over, but Arthur is often left completely drained of the little energy he had, quickly surrendering to sleep.

Charles buttons up his union suit, trying not to touch the skin of Arthur’s abdomen - he’s nervous of unannounced touch, understandably, especially in more private places, and Charles can’t think about the connotations of that for too long without letting his own fury overwhelm him. The blanket is tucked gently around his middle while the clean bandage wraps his chest and shoulder, as yet unstained by blood and pus as it surely will be by the next morning, the next time he has to cause Arthur this unavoidable pain.

Satisfied, he scrubs his hands in the wash basin of boiled water, making a note to fetch a clean pail as soon as Arthur is settled back to sleep.

Methodical, and as quiet as he can be, Charles tidies away the medical supplies the camp has collected for him, clearing the space of clutter. Despite having been sleeping on the floor beside the cot for a good week, he is still very aware that the tent is Arthur’s space, and he’s a guest in it, trying to stay polite even when the nature of looking after him, helping with the most private of tasks, reminds him of how keenly he feels their intimacy, and how deeply he longs to restart it once Arthur is safe and well.

“Charles?”

Voice barely sounding, Arthur is looking at him from the head of the bed, a caught expression on his face, like he’s unsure what to say.

“You okay?” Charles asks, anticipating as always, and notices how Arthur looks away from him. Frowns as he grasps for the right words. Doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I- Mm...”

Short and sharp, he sighs in defeat, and half-buries his face in his pillow, frustrated. The shy unease, the reluctance to voice whatever question he has in mind, tells Charles what he’s asking before Arthur even needs to speak. Another thing Charles wishes he could make easier, could lessen. Not just the pain, but the embarrassment too, his mental function recovered enough to be aware of the awkwardness of his situation, to know he must ask for uncomfortable, private help. It’s the nature of being so badly hurt, and they’re both adults - he knows he himself feels no shame or discomfort with any part of what Arthur needs him to assist with - but he also knows it’s not quite the same to be the one unable to cope without needing the help.

“You know I don’t mind,” Charles says, gentle, and sits closer to Arthur on the edge of the bed once he’s cleared away the bandages and tins of ointment, waiting for Arthur’s silent nod of permission before he leans over and down, slotting his arms around Arthur’s middle to sit him up.

It’s a precarious operation, but they’re getting better at it with repetition, Charles supporting him as painlessly as possible, listening for Arthur’s hissed breath when his bruises are accidentally touched, his grunts of exertion. His muscles tremble endlessly, and the damage from his shoulder is so massive that it affects his entire torso, radiating up his neck, down his spine, through his back, rendering every movement difficult and draining, even carrying the weight of his own head. It’s like asking him to run a marathon with cinder blocks chained to every limb, asking him to twist and pivot and hold up his chest, with half of it blown apart.

He’s panting by the time he’s sitting, shaking legs set over the edge of the bed, Charles’ arm around his waist all that’s keeping him up. His bodyweight is leant heavily into Charles’ side, and his head spins in a white red haze for the first few moments, blood pressure struggling after so long lying down, his right hand clinging to the thigh beside his, steadying his balance.

“I’ve got you,” Charles murmurs, arm like rock, bracketing Arthur into the side of his chest, able to feel his muscles quaking, the tight, desperate drawls of his lungs behind his splintered ribs. “Take as long as you need.”

“M’fine,” Arthur snaps, breathless as someone who is definitely not fine, eyes shut while the world around him rights itself.

Leaning across him, Charles brings over one of the many metal pails he’s collected for various uses, from clean water to vomit to impromptu laundry basket, and sets it between Arthur’s bare feet. Then, he pointedly doesn’t look, turning his head to watch the outside shadows on the tent walls, in silhouette against the morning sun. His thumb strokes absently over a patch of Arthur’s back, arm tight as it takes all the weight it can, effectively holding Arthur’s entire torso up for him, knowing if he let go, Arthur would slump as uselessly as a rag doll, gasping out his pain.

“Fuckin’...stupid,” comes Arthur’s voice, clenching his teeth as he fishes past the furthest button of his union suit, Charles feeling every strain through his ribcage, every spasm the movements cause, the stiffness in every joint.

Charles stays quiet. There’s nothing he can say that will make the situation less degrading for Arthur, less embarrassing. Knowing he can’t even sit up, let alone stand to take a piss by himself. It’s a problem neither of them had really thought about until it was urgently needed. The most universal and private need, suddenly thrown into ugly focus between them, jostling unsympathetically into their close friendship and demanding their attention.

Charles doesn’t mind. Not at all. It’s not something he feels any discomfort about, more than happy to do whatever he can to help while Arthur can’t help himself, and never having been a squeamish or prudish sort of person, but he knows it isn’t so simple for Arthur. He’s tried everything he can think to say, even when Arthur was barely awake to know what he was doing the first few times, but understands why nothing is really reassuring enough to quash the intrinsic shame, not from the act itself, he thinks, but from the lack of control Arthur feels, unable to take care of his most basic needs on his own. It’s just another violation. Another way for the O’Driscolls to humiliate him, belittle him, tear down his autonomy even now.

Arthur sighs, noisy and angry, and scowls throughout, unable to help how his thigh muscles shake as he relieves himself, knocking into Charles’ leg beside him. His gaze flicks anxiously to Charles’ face, but of course he isn’t looking, too polite to do anything that might cause Arthur any more distress, make this harder than it already is. The arm around his back is all he has to keep him steady, leaning mostly on Charles to keep from collapsing sideways. As he had the first time he’d tried alone.

Stupid.

Even the sound is demeaning, far too obvious what he’s doing, taking an age. He swears again, grumbling, and only once he’s finished and redressed does Charles ask him if he’s okay, and turn back to him once Arthur answers. There’s never any pity in Charles’ voice. There’s no mollycoddling, no derision or discomfort, nothing but gentle, reassuring normalcy, and though he can’t express it, Arthur is more grateful for it than he thinks there could ever be words to describe. Despite the deep and dehumanising shame - and the knowledge that being ashamed of something completely natural is foolish in and of itself - he’s glad Charles never fusses.

“I seen you piss before,” Charles says, matter-of-fact as if he’s reciting the grocery catalogue. It carries the same normality about it, like they’re having any other mundane conversation and there’s nothing especially interesting about the situation, nothing with which to make Arthur feel like it’s something to be bothered by. He sets the bucket down out of the way, like it’s just another piece of furniture, helping Arthur wash his hands in the basin and then lie down again. Normal. No reason to fuss. “Plenty of times.”

“I know.”

“You threw up on my knees yesterday. Why does this bother you?”

It’s not accusing. It never is.

Arthur scowls, only softened when Charles leans close, and smooths the harsh lines between his eyebrows with his thumb, achingly gentle. It makes Arthur’s heart hurt.

“I’unno,” Arthur grumbles, and shuts his eyes, leaning into Charles’ fingers, brushing over his unshaven cheek. “Sorry.”

“Shh. No need. Just...wish I could make it easier.”

His sigh is warm on Charles hand. It is a silly thing to be bothered about. Arthur’s not an overmodest sort of man. He’s never been so uptight about it before. They live outside; being shy about bodies and their various functions isn’t a feature in any of their lives, and anyone who did find it uncomfortable wouldn’t last long before running back to civilisation, where at least you usually get a seat to sit on and, if you’re lucky, a door to shut behind you. 

But everyone does it. Even the Queen of England has to. She probably uses something a little more upmarket than a bucket, but it’s still nothing to be embarrassed about. And Charles is the least likely person to ever further that discomfort in him, going out of his way to make sure Arthur feels as little as possible.

Still, he can’t help but feel ashamed.

His gaze flicks up and he looks at Charles, takes in the broad line of his nose, the warmth of his hand, the richness of his eyes, and so kind as he moves to stroke Arthur’s cheek, still looking at him as if he’s something worthy of his gaze. Compared to Charles - beautiful, capable, strong, fierce Charles - what is he? What kind of useless old bastard must he look like? 

A broken, sad wretch of a creature, who needs help pissing in a bucket.

He’d started to relax, before. Put a lid on the anxiety he feels almost constantly, and begun to hope he’d found something good with Charles, begun to daydream about what it might be like to go further, discover more of each other, give voice to desires and fantasies he’s kept so deeply hidden for decades, sure he’d never be so lucky as to find another man who would share them. But now...

How can he ever hope to still capture Charles’ affection after this? How can he ever think he’d be someone special in those gorgeous eyes, someone _attractive_ even, when Charles has been forced to deal with all of this, to mop up after him, to fetch and carry for him like a nanny. When he’s seen him reduced to such a miserable, pathetic new low, needing help aiming his dick so as not to wet his own bed.

Fucking Hell.

Arthur shifts his weight with a grimace, curling over on his good side, his back to Charles. His knees pull up instinctively, and he hunches in on himself, wishing for nothing but for the earth to swallow him, the red mud open up beneath his cot and devour all trace of him. Turn his existence to dust. The dressing covering his shoulder and left chest dwarfs his torso, making him seem even smaller, the left sleeve of his union suit tucked inside itself out of the way, leaving his arm bare, held weakly around his own chest. He shuts his eyes.

Hand falling from Arthur’s cheek as he turns away, Charles frowns.

How badly he wants to hold him. The cot is barely big enough for Arthur alone, but still he wants to lie beside him, take his hand, wait this entire ordeal out and sleep together until the world is a quieter place.

Silent, Charles lets himself truly look at the bruises around Arthur’s bicep, purplish and green, pockmarked in black, like a field pitted with cannonballs. There are similar injuries all over him, an ugly kaleidoscope of colour beaten into the softness of his skin, torn out from his flesh and scattered across him like scree from a cliffside. He wants to kiss them, each and every one, every inch, all the marks put on him by violent hands, all the wounds opened, physical and mental, weaving the threads back together so not even memory of their undeserving touch remains. Wants to wrench at the chains they set in him, loosen each iron link and pry Arthur from every prison that dares to hold him, repair every clipped pinion feather, snap every file that would blunt his teeth.

If it takes the rest of his life, he’d spend it gladly in worship of such a brave and beautiful man, easing each split stitch back together until Arthur feels whole again, feels strong and confident and believes him when he whispers the praises he longs to.

He wants to soothe. Soften. Wants to make it better, even the smallest amount. 

There’s little more painful than knowing he can’t. He can’t take it away. Can’t fix the embarrassment or discomfort, the pain, the loss. Can’t take the past from Arthur and put himself through the ordeal in his stead. Can’t even know if Arthur will still feel the same way as he did before, whether he’ll still enjoy Charles’ company, still feel comfortable with him. Or whether his heart will have changed too.

He wouldn’t blame him if it had.

All he can do is try to help where he can. And hope that Arthur doesn’t resent him for the extra suffering he’s putting him through.

With a tiny sigh, he brushes the backs of his fingers over Arthur’s arm, twisted slightly on the cot, a small gesture in an attempt to soothe some of the pain in him, and the urge inside himself to bundle him into his chest and never let go, kiss his confidence back, cradle him in his arms and promise everything he has to untangle the knotted trauma inside Arthur. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” he says quietly. “Not with me.” Charles swallows, words feeling no better than useless. 

“I know,” Arthur mumbles from beside him. “M’just...tired.” He sighs into his pillow, unable to vocalise the mess of feelings in his head. It’s a dizzying web of conflicting emotions, shrouded in the fog that persists around the edges of his consciousness, a frightening amnesia that locks his own mind behind an impenetrable wall. The chronic pain drains him further, and formulating proper thoughts is almost an impossibility for most of the time, only managing to give Charles vague scraps, hints, gestures, unable to put voice to what he feels.

“I know,” Charles says, soft. He rubs his fingers along Arthur’s forearm, so tender as to be worshipful, trying to convey just a fraction of the feeling he has, still, lodged somewhere behind his ribcage in the vault between his lungs. “Rest. I’ll be here. Whatever you need.”

Arthur sighs again, and his expression evens out with the pull of exhaustion, still calling him, unlikely to let go for many days yet. Perhaps weeks. Maybe by then, he’ll feel less like a burden.

 

“How is he?”

Charles considers. His teeth pull at his bottom lip, expression pinched like he’s chewing on a wasp.

Scared? Miserable? Lonely?

Suffering.

Trying to stitch together the scraps of his memory, to process what’s happened to him, even when he can barely see the tattered pieces he’s been tasked to fix? Already feeling some silent pressure to be better than he is, to be doing more, as if his worth as a human being is intrinsically tied to his ability to be productive and independent. Struggling beneath the holes in his head, great pits where the certainty of thought and awareness and recall once were, now closed off to him, leaving him blind and fumbling, doubting his own reality. And how terrifying that is, to not be able to trust your own mind.

“Coping,” he says, quiet, and Hosea looks at him from across the fire, frowning as though he can hear the cogs whirring in Charles’ brain, trying to locate a satisfactory answer.

It isn’t truly satisfactory, but what about this situation is?

“Still sleeping most of the time?”

“Mhm.”

A rattling sigh; Hosea rubs the back of his neck, stretches some of the kinks from his old shoulders. “S’pose it’s to be expected.” If possible, he looks like he’s aged another five years in the past few weeks, a shadow of grey stubble coating his jowls, cheeks blotchy in the heat. Save for the quiet, the others seem to be carrying on with life as normal. Yet Arthur’s ordeal clearly weighs more visibly on Hosea.

Perhaps, like with Charles, it’s simply highlighted how very close they were to losing him.

“Don’t let Dutch see once he’s up and about,” Hosea says, and huffs an empty chuckle, looking absently down at the dregs in his coffee cup. “He’ll have a new job for him as soon as he can aim a gun again.”

It’s intended as a joke. Neither of them laugh.

Charles stirs the soup in the pot on the hanger. He’s already overheard a few comments from Miss Grimshaw, and protestations from Micah, among others, that the pantry isn’t as full as it could be, that the horses aren’t being fully groomed, that the laundry is taking longer than it did before. Charles can mostly understand Susan’s worry, tasked as she is with keeping much of the camp running on her own, but if Micah even thinks to suggest Arthur needs to be doing more so soon, Charles will personally fillet him and donate his gristly mutton for provisions.

Dutch, though, is another matter. He’s been more absent than usual of late, from what Charles has noticed in his rare forays out of Arthur’s tent. But there’s certainly no doubt he’ll be nipping at Arthur’s heels even before he can properly stand on them. If he ever can stand on them again, his ankles still weak and plagued by sharp pains, despite the surface shackle wounds healing well. The muscles are surely damaged - that much is obvious - but particularly in his ankles, the damage seems to be in his bones too.

“Might not get that far.”

Hosea’s expression asks for clarification, and Charles sighs, shifting his weight slightly where he’s sitting cross-legged on the ground, stirring the soup over the fire. His brow sweats in the heat, and he drags his rolled sleeve over his face before addressing Hosea again. “His hand. Whole arm. It’s...damaged.”

It hadn’t been overtly noticeable at first. Charles put it down to the lingering pain, the weakness in his muscles, but he’s sure now there’s a much deeper trauma affecting Arthur’s left arm. The crater in his shoulder is hideous enough in itself, still raw and wet and carpeted with bruising, even as the colours change from black through to purple, the edges turning towards green now, but it’s clear as time goes by that the injury has affected more than just muscles in his chest and back, and that the damage is far from superficial.

“His fingers are...slow,” Charles says, talking more to the pot of soup than Hosea, skimming through the broth with the spoon as it bubbles. “Disjointed. Numb more often than not, and cold. Elbow doesn’t twist or bend well. Can’t lift his arm much at all.”

Hosea frowns. It’s not unexpected. But still worrying. “Some kind of nerve damage, maybe? Don’t know much anatomy, but the shoulder’s got a lot of nerves.”

“Probably. Said yourself, it’s a miracle he still has the arm at all.”

“Mm... We should’ve taken him to a proper surgeon.”

A new sigh, and Charles deems the soup cooked through enough, setting aside the stirring spoon and taking up the ladle hanging beside the pot instead. “I agree, but… There wasn’t enough time,” he says, and Hosea reluctantly nods his agreement, watching him, though his eyes are absent, thinking on other things. “He’d have died that night. If not infection then hypothermia. Dehydration.”

“Mhm. If not for you.”

Charles huffs, dry as picked bones, and ladles some of the soup into a bowl before passing it to Hosea with a new spoon. Mumbling his thanks, he sets the bowl on his knees as Charles fills another from the pot, a half portion for Arthur, another attempt at testing his stomach with some bland food.

“I try not to think about it,” he admits, and Hosea looks at him as he blows on his spoonful of soup.

“Think that’s what everyone’s doing. Makes it easier.”

The bowl set on a serving tray, plus a piece of yesterday’s bread he’d taken from the chuckwagon, Charles carefully gets to his feet, carrying his humble offerings. If only Arthur could so easily pretend none of it happened. Charles would take it all upon himself if he could, even just for one day. Let Arthur have a moment’s peace, as if nothing ever went wrong. As if he never left that morning.

“Just...wish I could make it easier on him,” he says quietly, and the expected pang of discomfort at his honesty doesn’t come. Hosea doesn’t make him feel like he needs to explain or diminish any part of himself or his words, the same as Arthur. 

“Says the feller makin’ him lunch,” Hosea replies, pointing with his spoon.

“Ha.”

“I mean it. Ain’t me or Dutch or no one else helpin’ him most right now, and it’s none of us he’d want with him. It’s you he wants.”

Hosea swirls the spoon through his soup, steam rising steadily around his hand. “He trusts you. Like no one I ever seen him trust.”

Glancing at him, Charles purses his lips, unsure how to express a smile when he doesn’t really feel capable of smiling. The corners of his mouth move. He shifts his weight.

“You make it easier just bein’ there,” Hosea continues, and noisily sips at his soup, still too hot to eat without a generous intake of cold breath with it. “Otherwise he’d be...doin’ everythin’ alone, killin’ himself in the process rather than ask for help. Wears his ass on his shoulders, that boy.”

This time, Charles does manage a smile, barely there at all, but a shade warmer than his usual blank, collected frown - a permanent feature of late. He doesn’t doubt Arthur’s stoicism. It’s hard enough for him to accept help at all, even if it is from someone he trusts.

For a second, he dwells on the feeling. Allows himself a moment of fondness. Arthur trusts him. He knew that, of course he did, in the small part of his brain that’s still thinking rationally and isn’t solely concerned with how to get him and Arthur through another day alive, but it’s reassuring to hear it from someone else. Especially Hosea, who knows Arthur so well. A tiny piece of warmth, to remind him why he’s trying so hard.

“Thanks, Hosea,” he says, and amiably touches Hosea’s shoulder as he passes by his seat, missing the old man’s chuckle as he heads back towards Arthur’s wagon, bringing along the simple lunch.

Sheets still shroud the wagon itself, conspicuous but providing necessary privacy, and Charles is grateful for them, hoping they stay for a while yet. Hosea’s words echo in his head; Dutch will have work for Arthur as soon as he can convince him it’s needed, whether it’s in the interests of his wellbeing or not, and Charles would rather that wait. Or not come at all.

He hesitates before announcing his arrival. So preoccupied with the myriad other things involved with nursing Arthur, Charles hasn’t dwelt much on his concerns surrounding Dutch. It’s not an issue he feels he has much authority in, and the part of him that insists he keep out of trouble, keep himself passive and unnoticed, especially when it comes to white men with power - that part is already afraid he’s gone too far, and that Dutch will kick him unceremoniously out on his ass if he so much as thinks out of turn again.

He sighs. Shuts his eyes. Dutch isn’t a dictator. Isn’t supposed to be. He’s been decent to him, treats him fairer than most would. And Arthur trusts him. Maybe it was just a silly mistake, a human error anyone could have made, and Charles’ wariness is unfounded at best, dangerous at worst.

Despite any misgivings, despite the lack of judgement, Charles knows he has to trust Arthur’s trust in Dutch. Even if his first loyalty has shifted.

“Arthur? It’s me.”

Peeking around the canvas shades, Charles can’t help but brighten at the sight of Arthur awake, propped a little higher than flat in bed by two thin pillows and a folded blanket, requisitioned from Karen’s generous donations to the cause. 

According to Sadie, some days previous Miss Jones had managed to stroll out of the Rhodes Parlour House and make it back to camp with the pair of down-filled pillows - no straw at all - one heavy quilt, three blankets, several towels, and a half dozen pairs of socks, tucked somewhere about her person, without anyone being any the wiser. Charles didn’t like to ask where exactly she hid any of it, content to know Karen is a woman of means, determination, and likely a shiv or two hidden in her bloomers.

Arthur looks at him and manages the faintest smile, weary and weak, head leant back against the crate behind his bed, a kind of makeshift headboard. His growing stubble only partly disguises the gauntness of his cheeks, the sharp lines of his jaw without their healthy fat, bathed in the permanent orange glow of the lantern light inside the tent. He’s handsome, so handsome, but still looks ill, even if his pallour is receding, no longer quite so mottled and sickly. The bloodshot red of his eyes persists, but the blue is more noticeable, peeking through the nebulous mess, eyelids less swollen, like the first glimpse of spring beneath winter’s white cloak.

“Hey,” Charles says, and perches carefully in his usual place on the edge of the cot, wary of knocking Arthur’s legs. Every inch of him is sore, connected to his shoulder by muscle or bone, tendons, ligaments, nerves, if not directly then via some other beaten body part, creating one sprawling anatomical map with pain in every corner.

“Hey,” Arthur replies, soft, and shifts slightly to accommodate the new weight.

“You look less pale than this morning. How d’you feel?”

With a grunt, Arthur shrugs the only shoulder he can. “Like...ten pounds of shit. In a five pound sack.”

Charles huffs, smiling easily. Only Arthur would still be making jokes. Only Arthur could still make him laugh at them. “In that case, I’ve never seen shit look finer.”

“Oh hush,” Arthur says, waving his hand dismissively as he breathes his laughter, nose scrunching up with his eyes.

Instinct keeps him trying, but Arthur’s left hand clearly struggles to move as it should. His fingers seem lethargic, as if the message calling them into action has become distorted on the way from his brain, stuttered and choppy like a Morse code telegram, refusing to answer his attempts to touch or gesture as normal.

Charles sets the tray in Arthur’s lap once he’s sitting more upright, helping prop his back with the pillows so he can eat as comfortably as he can. It hurts him to sit up straight for much time, but a short while is no longer impossible.

“Thought soup might be easy enough to digest, but a bit more exciting than bread,” Charles says, and glances at the weak attempt of Arthur’s left hand to steady the tray on his thighs, unable to hold it properly, instead simply resting on the metal surface like a paperweight. When the fingers do manage to respond, they’re tense and slow, as are his wrist and elbow, unconsciously held closer to his body as his brain struggles to understand why it can’t find them as easily as it used to, wading blind. His whole balance is off-kilter, visible even when he’s lying down, and frequently he comments that his fingers feel as though he’s sat on them, sparkling with invisible pins, jangling needles pricking inside each one.

In truth, Hosea hadn’t been completely sure he’d found all the buckshot pellets, that first night. The shot was easily swallowed by Arthur’s flesh, the spread contained, and although it’s some kind of miracle his shoulder blade wasn’t hit, and nor was his collarbone, the standing angle steep enough to lodge beneath them both, the damage instead has sheared through the muscles of his chest and back, the web of nerves Charles suspects controls much of his arm. It’s impossible to know if any pellets still remain, causing unseen havoc somewhere unknown, but even then, Charles knows nerves don’t easily repair.

“Don’t have to eat all of it.”

“Mm,” Arthur hums, stirring the thin soup, watching the steam swirl from the surface.

He blows gently across his spoonful, and sighs at the taste once he swallows, so used to only drinking Charles’ herbal teas, or water, depressingly plain despite the few fresh berries Charles had let infuse through the pitcher for a bit of extra interest. Eating real food, warm and filling and flavourful, even with the lurking threat of his stomach rebelling, is a luxury he’d almost forgotten.

“Thank you,” he breathes, and slowly prepares another spoonful, movement feeling clumsy, as though he’s still asleep. The exhaustion in him persists, but Charles is likely right in hoping his energy will start to recover once he can eat. Although, the first few attempts at dry bread and hardtack hadn’t gone very well, thrown violently back into the bucket by the bed. But, small progress is still progress.

As Arthur eats, Charles stays quiet, content to share the silence with him. It takes up much of Arthur’s strength, and he doesn’t want to further exhaust him with conversation. At some point, he takes Arthur’s hand, the left one, and twists slightly in place to hold it in both of his, turning it over to see the lines of his palm. His thumbs sweep over Arthur’s skin, the heel and the mounds at the base of his fingers, tracing each line and curve, then pressing a little more deeply.

Firm but gentle, he massages the flesh, rubbing circles between his thumbs and fingers. Each knuckle is manipulated in the most careful way, Charles’ hands warm and steady, bracketing Arthur’s, replacing the permanent numb sensation with something more positive, a soothing feeling his damaged nerves can focus on.

Voice seeming to melt with the tension in his hand, Arthur hums his gratitude, and sets down his spoon once he’s eaten as much soup as he feels able to, mopping some more with a piece of the dry bread. “Do my back next?” he asks, quiet but heady with affection, with how relaxed he is.

“Sure,” Charles replies, and has to smile at Arthur’s quick protest that he was only joking, tenderly holding Arthur’s hand and bringing it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back.

The soup stays down, and Arthur tires visibly with every passing minute, starting to slump against his pillows, ripped muscles protesting at having to hold themselves upright for any length of time. Charles tidies the tray to the bedside table out of the way, and Arthur gingerly lies back down, shifting slowly onto his back like a reclining geriatric bear. Retakes Charles’ hand once he’s comfortable, placing his useless fingers in Charles’ palm, and sighs with small relief when Charles holds it in response, joined by his side on the bed.

The hand bothers him, as all of it does. He’s a mess, if he wasn’t before. A ragged collage made up of broken and bent pieces, glued poorly together, like a child’s drawing of a man.

The thought reminds him of Jack’s picture. He’d pinned it on the wall of his wagon, next to Copper, and covering the image of his father. Lyle Morgan’s face was unwanted when he was alive, and no less so in death. One fewer pair of judgemental eyes watching him struggle through recovery is welcome. It’s only Charles’ eyes that don’t make him feel like he’s some kind of imposter in his own bed, some poor crippled imitation of the man that used to be Arthur, fooling exactly nobody and as unwelcome as cholera in the water supply.

The drawing depicts him looking a lot better than he feels. Rosy-cheeked, smiling, standing on his own two feet. Though it cheers him too, warms his heart to see. Despite the injuries, despite the pain and the immobility and the great burden of knowing he can barely function on his own, it’s so much better than it could have been. He’s lucky to still have a mostly functional limb at all. Lucky to have his life.

But on the worst days, when the pain is so great he wants to gnaw through his humerus bone with his teeth, wants to set a shotgun on the other shoulder just to even out the feeling in his hands, it seems like losing the arm completely might have been the greater mercy. Luck means as much as chicken shit with a hole where his shoulder should be.

“I talked to Hosea,” Charles says softly. His thumb strokes Arthur’s hand, watching his drifting eyes, his expression relaxing. He’s still exhausted beyond words. As much as Charles longs for his company, his companionship, he’d never deny him the rest he so badly needs.

“Mm?”

“If you want to see him… Or any of-”

“No,” Arthur says, and opens his eyes, something close to fear flitting through them, quick and darting. “No, I- I don’t-”

He sighs, frowning. Considers how to explain thoughts he can barely keep hold of himself, as usual unable to put words to the mess of feelings inside him. “I don’t... _not_ want to, but...”

“It’s okay,” Charles says, squeezing his hand. “You don’t have to explain.” He understands. If it was him in Arthur’s place, he’s not sure he’d want anyone seeing him either.

“It’s...different,” Arthur mumbles, still frowning, the furrows in his brow aging his face. “With you. S’different.”

Charles’ thumb slows where it’s stroking Arthur’s hand.

“Don’t feel... Uncomfortable.”

The stroking starts up again. Charles buries his smile between his tight lips. “I’m glad,” he says, and sits beside him as he surrenders to his sleep once again, a reassuring and gentle presence, continually holding his hand.

 

Blood is thick. Viscous. Closer to mud than water.

He’s never really noticed before.

It doesn’t flow so much as creep, clinging in sticky tar-like tendrils down four shaking legs, juddered with every movement, every spasm in the muscle underneath.

The horse stumbles, hoof caught in shifting sand and stuttering over itself, splashing in the water. A flat, clapped sound; it rights its balance, head ducked, neck hanging with the weight of exhaustion, pushing onwards through the endless water as the blood drips, slow like slag.

Arthur watches.

It is night. Moonlight white and sky black. The blood stands out, saturated colour flooding a pale coat with spirited red. A sanguine edging beneath a heavy cloak, a gauzy contrasting trim, cheery and sickly as Christmas garlands, stark against the backdrop of winter snow.

Trudging forward, the horse doesn’t stop. A silent funeral procession of one, a train of red water in its wake, swirling with blood strings like paper confetti, left in the road after the parade. She hauls herself into each step, and the blood inches past her hocks, dribbling into the water as wax slides down the shaft of a burning candle. Like ink, it flowers outwards when it hits, blooming roses from a climbing briar, petals twisting and roiling from thorned vines. Graceful somehow, like a dancer, pirouetting en pointe.

He is closer then. Her coat is black on top, an oil slick dripping from her ears to her flanks, molten iron, face bald pink and shining with sweat. The blood flows faster, cold. Thin.

A need to be with her sits deep and innate in his gut, and he presses forward in the water, wading, paddling, swimming, all at once, grasping the water past his fingers. Slow, dragging his body on.

She is hurt. Blood streams from her flanks.

She is bleeding, and as he claws closer, slipping clumsy in the freezing water, he can see her injuries, holes in her flesh, great craters with black edges, weeping red tears into her coat.

“No…”

They’re everywhere. All over her. Fist-sized pits within her body, splintering the skin, bruises unnoticeable against the dark of her back, the deep swathe of blood flooding every inch of white on her, painting in the blanks and overflowing into the water.

Closer. He hauls himself closer. The welts are growing as he watches, devouring the horse before him like gaping mouths, jaws unhinged, burning gunpowder black. They eat through her flesh.

“No, please-”

Frozen water holds him, sucking at his feet. He falls forward, smacking onto his knees in wet red sand, reaching for the bleeding horse as she continues her funerary march, processing on as her body sloughs away. 

Viscera lands in stinking lumps in his path as he crawls through the leeching mud, trying to scream for her, calling for her to stop. The holes grow. Shear through the muscle, pick at her bare bones, spitting out her bloody tissue, flesh avulsed and smacking wet into the sand, speckled with black powder.

“Please!” he cries, and the horse suddenly stops. 

Water swills silent around her legs. It laps at the coating of blood, sucks into the craters in her bony legs. Finally she turns to him, pale face pointed back.

Magpie opens her eyes. Her eyeballs are red.

Arthur startles awake, erupting from his pillow like blood from an artery, sitting up in such a sudden movement that his head spins over on itself and he pitches on his axis, collapsing sideways into Charles’ waiting hands. He’s heaving for breath, eyes wide and skittering like frightened mice, grasping at Charles’ arms, clawing for purchase, for something solid. 

The nightmare subsides, slinking back into nothingness.

“Hey, hey…” Charles is saying, perched on the edge of the cot, holding him up. His voice is honey, smooth and sweet. “I’ve got you, you’re safe.”

It’s dark within the tent, shadows drifting thick and fuzzy, like velvet has been draped in place of the canvas. There’s just enough light to make out the approximate shapes of each other, and Charles reaches across to the bedside table to find the matches there, lighting one by touch alone and using the small glow to light the candle holder on the surface. The flame flickers to life, and he blinks in the new clarity as he finds Arthur’s eyes.

Arthur blinks back at him, skittish, searching his face. “Magpie,” he rasps, desperate, knuckles white on Charles’ arms. “Magpie, her eyes- She-”

“Shh, shh… It’s okay, just breathe a second.”

Nodding, he focuses on his breathing as much as he can, eyes darting into the tent’s corners, trapped like a fly in a jar. Large hands settle on his biceps, gently rubbing, and gradually his vice grip on Charles starts to slacken, colour coming back to his face. Dark circles are ever present, sunk beneath his eyes, the bruise crowding his forehead lurking behind a few stray strands of hair and giving his face a patchy appearance, like a threadbare quilt repaired in different fabrics. He shivers, coated in a soft orange glow from the candle beside him.

“There,” Charles says, warm and comforting, like a mug of hot cocoa before bed, clasped between grateful hands. “You’re okay.”

Breathing deep, Arthur nods again, shoulders losing their clenched tension and falling slack, hands at a loss for what to do as he gingerly settles back against his pillows, adrenaline faltering in its hold on his aching torso. 

“I...I saw Magpie,” he mumbles, absently dragging his good hand through his hair, trying to push it back off his face. Charles takes hold of his left, squeezing ever so gently.

“A nightmare?”

“Mm.”

His teeth pull at his own lip. “I ain’t seen… I didn’t think- Is...she okay?” he asks, voice meagre in the silent night, looking at Charles, bloodshot eyes searching his face.

Charles looks back at him. It’s not an easy question to answer.

Preoccupied with Arthur, Charles has only managed to find the occasional moment for Taima, and for Magpie, taking on her care while Arthur is bed-bound. He can’t lie to him. She hasn’t recovered half as well as he has himself, even though it’s only been a short while since they returned. There’s a change in her, as there is in him, and yet somehow much worse without the ability to rationalise and process, haunted by the lurking spectre of what happened. It clings to her, like the dark shroud of black covers the white of her coat. Beset by ghosts.

Kieran has offered his help, besieged by his own sense of guilt, and one of the few people who has the patience and horse sense to regain some of Magpie’s shattered trust, but he too has seen that she isn’t coping. They’d strapped her cannon bones as soon as they could, nearly getting kicked several times in the process, and increased her feed to replace the pounds lost, but though she’s likely to recover from the lameness in her hind legs, and she doesn’t appear to be harbouring any other physical wounds, the mental damage seems far more severe.

“She is...suffering,” Charles says quietly, crease between his eyebrows. His words are measured, careful. “She is fearful, and weak. I think perhaps...they hurt her too.”

Almost at once, Arthur sits up. The blanket is thrown back, and he shifts forward to the edge of the cot beside Charles, sudden and clumsy. “Arthur-” With his breath held, he hauls each of his legs over the side with his hand, socked feet placed precariously on the ground.

His knees shake, ankles juddering as he tries to push himself upwards, bear his own weight for the first time in so long, such a grim determination on his face that it breaks Charles’ heart all the more than just knowing he’s caused him pain in honesty. The cot wobbles with how hard he grips it, weak legs pitching at the knees as soon as his balance shifts. “Arthur...”

“I gotta- Gotta s-see her.”

Charles just frowns, powerless, hands hovering awkwardly between them both, ready to catch, to support where he can, though unwilling to just bodily grab him and make him stop.

Stubborn, Arthur tries again, hissing like a boiling kettle as his knees shudder, his ankles spike with screeching pain, trying to force his body upright like a bull elephant with a head injury, dangerously unbalanced and vaguely terrifying.

Pain spreads through his torso, sharp and suffocating. His hips wobble a few inches from the bed, balanced mostly on his right hand, legs refusing to accept the load. It feels like he’s being wrapped in barbed wire, constricting around his chest, pulling tighter and tighter even as the teeth eat into his skin, a deep and debilitating ache in every bone. It’s all over him, the flesh torn by the buckshot connected not just to his shoulder but his entire upper body, his sides and back, arms, chest. There’s nothing that doesn’t scream, ripping with new strain, torn tissue, internal bruises, fractured ribs and muscle cut to ribbons.

He grabs for Charles’ shoulder. Digs in his black nails. Choking with the effort, he shoves his weight forward over his knees and immediately threatens to overbalance, breath held in the shrill vice behind his sternum as his ankles falter and cave, fighting, clawing for balance, for his body to keep itself upright.

He fails. Arthur makes a noise like a mule kicking through a barn door and crumples to the cot, collapsing backwards. A furious, desperate cry is all he manages as he slumps back to his pillow in agony, heaving for air, his legs instinctively curling up to his chest, shaking from head to toe.

His breath comes in short hitched knots, cheeks flaring up as he falls onto his good side away from Charles, hugging his arms around his chest as if to keep himself together. The muscles in his legs are in spasm, white knuckles holding them tight, squashing the broken pieces back to their rightful places, even if they no longer quite seem to fit. He shuts his eyes, locked in a bristling foetal curl, the shame of defeat clearly just as painful as everything else.

Charles sighs, soft, and has to swallow how his own heart hurts, recognising the clench in Arthur’s jaw, the flared nostrils that tell him how much pain he’s in, and trying not to let show, lips bitten to keep them from trembling. His forehead scrunches in the middle, eyebrows pulled up, breath sniffled through his nose.

Trying not to cry.

Tentative, Charles rests his hand on Arthur’s tensed arm, jostled by the shaking in his legs. There’s little he can think of to say. Words scramble in his head, skittering out of reach whenever he tries to grab for them, prying for something within him that can make it better, some comfort he can give. He strokes Arthur’s bruised bicep with his thumb, and finds nothing in any vocabulary that could possibly fix the pain in him, feeling his agony like the glowing point of a branding iron lodged behind his lungs.

All he can do is watch for a moment, hesitating for far too long and feeling even worse because of it, before he shifts on the bed, rearranging the tossed blanket at the end. As careful as he can manage, being about the size of the entire cot by himself, Charles manoeuvres to his other side, facing the wall of the wagon itself, glancing at Jack’s drawing pinned there, and the picture of Copper Arthur keeps close.

The candlelight flickers, momentarily painting Copper the colour he was surely named for, before flitting back to shadow again, returned to memory. As he shifts, Charles leans over to blow it out, bathing the wagon in darkness once more, granting Arthur the silent privacy of being unable to be seen.

Arthur is unresponsive as Charles shuffles and fidgets, folding himself into the narrow space behind him, rearranging his limbs, eventually tucking his legs beneath the neatened blanket and pulling it up to cover them both. Finally satisfied, he settles close to Arthur, tentatively lying down, sharing the same pillow. His hand goes back to his bicep again, stroking with his thumb.

There’s barely enough room, only an inch between his chest and Arthur’s back, but even with the edge of the cot pressed uncomfortably against the meat of his shoulder and hip, Charles waits to close the remaining gap, unwilling to simply push himself completely into Arthur’s space without explicit permission, especially after such an awful nightmare.

Trembling still, Arthur doesn’t react to him, and Charles nuzzles close to the back of his neck, longing to kiss the bare skin beneath his hairline. His hand rubs up and down, soothing, something to interrupt the screaming of his nerves, a jangling circuit of pain, all centers lit up and flashing like a forest full of fireflies, blinking to their own disjointed rhythm.

Again, there’s nothing he can think to say. Words are such a meagre outlet for what he feels, what he’s been feeling for so long now, and even more vocally in the days since he brought Arthur home. It seems like words are the only tools he can call on to help explain the hitch in his heart rhythm, the skipped beat in its song with every moment they spend together, and yet the only language he can think to speak is a silent one. Attempting to confine the enormity of the feeling within him to a handful of morphemes and phonemes, syllables and affixes, seems entirely inadequate.

His feeling is irrepressible. Unable to be confined. Wild and boundless as the earth.

It takes a while, Charles relaxing behind Arthur’s unmoving back, slinking towards the sleep that was interrupted. He strokes Arthur’s arm, slowing as the prowling shadows remind him of how late it is, starting to swirl into the dark of drowsy half-awareness, content to hold himself in the odd position - a hair’s breadth from Arthur, arm outheld - all night if that’s what Arthur needs.

And then Arthur moves. His hips inch back, easily disguised as a simple shift of weight except for the way he presses against Charles’ chest, fitting into him as a hand into a glove, leaning back into the weight of him. Charles can feel his sigh shuddering deep from his chest, how he twists beneath his arm and uncurls, despite the discomfort it brings to move.

Flat in bed, Arthur looks up at him, and Charles props his own head up on his elbow to find his eyes in the dim light, only the white of moonlight through the canvas allowing the shadows to part around each other’s features, just visible, yet knowable by heart.

Gentle, Charles brings his hand up. He brushes Arthur’s cheek with the backs of his fingers, and the tiniest noise sounds in Arthur’s throat, leaning into the touch as if it’s the first kindness he’s felt in his lifetime, the first drink after a decade of thirst, the first sip of nectar of a new spring.

“I’ve got you…” Charles says, murmuring low, flattening his hand to cup Arthur’s face, noting how his eyes fall shut with the sound of his voice. “We’ll get through this. Magpie too. No matter how long it takes.”

Arthur nods; he can feel it in his hand, stubble prickling against the heel. His own hand comes up to Charles’, and he turns his head just enough to press his lips to Charles’ palm, kissing there, nuzzling. A wordless thank you. Charles smiles, just a quirk at the corner of his mouth, weary and grateful.

It’s too dark to see more than vague impressions, shapes and contrast, yet Charles still gazes down at Arthur, transfixed by him as he so often is, in the off-centre skew of his nose with the large scar on the side, the chiselled cut of his jaw, the slightly open swell of his lips, like the petals of a blooming flower. “I’ve got you,” he whispers again, and can’t help glancing again at Arthur’s mouth, struck by how much he misses kissing him.

They had been so close to taking their intimacy further. No matter what that would entail, Charles doesn’t care beyond the want he feels, the need to be close to Arthur, to express that in whatever way Arthur wishes. To have been forced apart so violently, just at the beginning, seems intentionally cruel. Like felling spring’s new sapling, striving trunk splintered irreparably in two before its first buds can even bloom.

“Charles,” Arthur mumbles, overwrought and rasping. His eyes are open, shining with unshed tears in the low light, like ripe cherries, glistening deep and rich behind his fair lashes as Charles looks down at him, propped on his bent elbow. Shards of light break up the inkwells, stars in the eternal sky. They share the same thought. “Kiss me?”

Charles’ hand goes still, breath tripping over on the spattering of freckles he knows are dotted across Arthur’s cheekbones, invisible without the candlelight, splashing into the bruised sea that laps at his eyebrow beneath his hairline. The bruise seems to extend down his whole face, painted in blue and purple in the low light, and his memory fills in the details, knowing Arthur’s face even in darkness.

Hesitant, he again glances to Arthur’s lips, tracing the perfect lines of them, like the curves of a pulled bow, swept into points at the edges where the tension is held. He wants to. It’s been so long since their last proper kiss. Is it right to want to? When Arthur is so sick, when he’s so exhausted, is it right to still desire him? To want to put recovery to the side and indulge in his basest instinct?

“Do you want me to?” he asks, feeling his own voice hum in his chest. A silly question really, but he has to know for sure. His fingers brush Arthur’s cheekbone.

“More’n anythin’,” Arthur breathes, hand again coming up to shadow Charles’, nuzzling into his palm, asking for more contact in the softest, quietest way, even as every finger still shakes. 

It’s not hurried. Despite how much both of them ache for it, for touch and comfort, Charles sinks lower to him, slow, and hesitates as he leans into Arthur, careful of where he touches, where he puts his weight. His loose hair falls out from behind his ear, and Arthur reaches up to tuck it back, threading his fingers through black silk and staying there, pressing up as much as he can to Charles’ lips, finally meeting in a shy, shuddering kiss.

Arthur’s breath stutters out of him, hot on Charles’ cheek. The tiniest noise hitches in his throat, and he wraps his working arm hard around Charles’ neck, pulling him down into him, needing to feel his body, his warmth covering him. Melting, Charles settles between his legs, and can’t help but smile against Arthur’s mouth, catching another sighing noise of pleasure, Arthur’s arm bracketing his head, tangling weakly in his hair, kiss hanging muted and tentative between them.

No part of kissing Arthur can be wrong.

Limp but determined, Arthur’s left hand bumps against Charles’ bare side - dressed as he was for sleep - pawing at his ribs with clumsy, cold fingers, touching his chest, the dip in his back before the waistband of his underwear, how his hips swell out with his oblique muscles. A perfect place for Arthur to hold, hand groping as he manages to part his leaden legs, only able to move them the smallest amount, but allowing Charles’ weight to sink further into him, locking their hips together.

It’s a deep and delicious friction, thin cotton all that’s between them, and Charles can’t help his lost breath, how it spikes as a giddy flutter in his stomach. The kisses start to snatch, eager and engulfing, like it’s all they can do to keep going, lips slipping, relocking, nipping at Arthur’s jaw before he’s dragged back to his mouth, held there as if their kiss is keeping him alive.

Charles is in his every sense, overwhelming in the most brilliant, incandescent swell; a brush fire, whipped up around him, and him liberated in how it engulfs him completely, a ravaging inferno to lull his aching mind, soften the jagged edges. With steady weight over him, those lips on his, Charles hands warm on his buzzing skin, Arthur is soothed to the first peace he’s felt in weeks, able to feel something other than pain. The earnest, unashamed affection Charles offers is like a heavy blanket, and Arthur gives himself wholly, Charles’ name mumbled into the kiss with their laboured breath, one soft palm cradling his head, holding him close.

“Mmh…” Arthur breaks the kiss, breathing hard, and Charles simply stills, eyes staying shut for a long moment, foreheads resting together. His lips brush Arthur’s, trembling.

Arthur could have died.

A maelstrom rages, emotion bubbling up; fear, heartbreak, guilt, anger, and all held so tightly within himself, choked into silence lest the levee break and the outpouring of stress and horror and exhaustion - everything he’s felt since Arthur left - sweep him away. He can’t afford that, not while Arthur still needs him strong. But it threatens, as it has so many times since. The first cracks in the straining mortar, eroding between the foundation stones.

Arthur could have _died_. That horrific truth keeps returning to him. If not in whatever hole the O’Driscolls kept him in, then here, in the bed they’re both crammed into, consumed by Hell’s fever, sick all the way down to his blood and caked thick in his own filth. And still could, even with the infection sweating out of him with every day survived, every night he lives through.

He’d come so close. Again. So close to losing him, right at the start of their friendship, and the intensity with which Charles _feels_ , feels inexplicably bonded to Arthur after so short a time, is so great that it’s terrifying. The weight in his heart feels heavy, almost painful, still struggling to shoulder such a bright, overwhelming, alarming, beautiful, thrilling _feeling_.

He’s never shared a bed with another person.

He’s never shared such a bond with another person.

And despite how frightening it is to feel so strongly, it feels so natural with Arthur. So easy, so positive, so affirming.

Yet, part of him still wants to run.

“Charles?”

Arthur is breathing against his cheek, foreheads leant together. Breathing, beating. Living, still. He could have lost him. He could have never found him, never known what happened. Perhaps stumbled upon his bones one day, curled in the corner of some abandoned place, some sad sepulchre with only gnawing animals to mourn him, thankful for his sacrifice of flesh to feed their own.

Would Dutch ever have gone to look for him? If Charles had left a day later, ignored his gut instinct for one more day, would Arthur have died in his cell? In this bed? Would his inaction have laid the earth on Arthur’s freshly-dug grave? 

To think he could have condemned the brightest star in his modest firmament to a grisly, lonely death, and never have known, never have been able to take this... _this_ any further, and find out how sharing a small corner of life with Arthur would look. Discover if it could ever be as beautiful as a part of him suspects it would.

He could have lost him.

His eyelids flutter. When he opens them, his eyes are glassy, quaking storm clouds, and Arthur instantly seems to sober, hand softening in Charles’ hair, moving to frame his face, an inch from his. Searching for him, wherever he’s gone. “Charles?” he says again, and holds his breath to lean the extra few centimetres upwards, chest tight, nuzzling Charles’ nose with his.

The thick black line of his eyelashes falters again, and Charles’ eyes refocus, pupils huge in the low light, blinking with the welling of tears. He goes to smile, a reflex devoid of all but placatory humour, and Arthur is sure that’s something he does himself, a gesture Charles has learnt and adopted into his own vocabulary. It’s not pleasant to see. His eyes seem to teeter, balanced on a precipice.

“Sorry,” Charles whispers, bare in the dark and the silence. Alien. 

Careful again, he shifts his weight to Arthur’s right so as not to lie completely on him, or his injured shoulder, feeling Arthur’s trailing hand still on his bare back, following his movement as long as it can. He settles in the space between Arthur and the wall of the wagon, taking a second just to breathe, shut the door on so much emotion, his teeth pulling absently at his lip.

Finally he can look at Arthur, and even in the dim light Arthur can see how he seems to gather his facial features, pulling the threads of himself into one hand, keeping them controlled. For Arthur’s sake. It had hurt to see his face contort in pain, but it’s almost as heartbreaking to see it deliberately made blank, wiped like a slate, leaving only the spider scars cracked into his skin, the sprinkling of stubble around his mouth. Such beautiful and expressive features, the most handsome Arthur has ever been blessed with seeing, drawn tight into themselves. Closed.

“I…” Arthur speaks before he thinks, and hesitates, fishing through the post-kiss haziness, the post-nightmare nerves to find some words. To comfort, just as Charles does him. “I got you too,” he says, his voice thicker for the wretched hour, and the kisses, low and rumbling, exhaustion draining his meagre reserves of energy.

Pained by the movement but determined to illustrate his point, Arthur shifts a little to his good side, and settles his head on his pillow, leaving enough room for Charles to do the same beside him. If he wants to. His left hand brushes against Charles’ chest, stilted in its injury, only able to rub the backs of his knuckles over the smooth skin, trailing up to his shoulder, stubbornly pushing into his hair. Charles’ eyes find his again. They’re dark, heavy with their own sorrow. “Y’don’t gotta...be strong for me, if-” he mumbles, words small. “If you don’t feel strong.”

Charles just holds his gaze for a moment, and Arthur’s confidence seems to seep out of him with every silent second, sure he’s managed to make it worse. “I know I ain’t- S-So strong right now, but…” His hand falls limply from Charles’ hair. If he could find the right words, grapple them into some kind of order, something heartfelt and meaningful and comforting- But it’s like there’s a weight in his head, a thick seaward mist where his brain once was, and though he’s desperate to voice his feelings for Charles, his reassurance, his gratitude, to comfort him with the same easy affection that Charles offers him, it’s like trying to catch the wind in his hands. “But I got you too. I’m here. I-” He sighs. “M’sorry… Not...makin’ sense.”

This time, Charles smiles properly, a genuine incline of his lips, breath soft as he shifts an inch closer, leaning his head on his elbow again to look at Arthur, expression newly warm, full of fondness like it’s straining at the seams. The sadness is overshadowed so easily, eclipsed by Arthur’s uncertain affection, and the love Charles feels for him in response. “No, it made sense,” he says, gentle as his hand is, touching Arthur’s cheek, thumb brushing over his parted lips, still slightly wet. “Thank you.”

God, he missed him.

“Just...missed you,” Charles whispers, tracing the stubble surrounding Arthur’s mouth, feeling each unshaven hair prickle beneath his thumb. “I- ...Could’ve lost you.”

It’s a solemn reminder, despite the casual tone with which it’s said, the attempt to be lighthearted, and Arthur can’t help but frown, bringing his own hand up to hold the one cradling his face, nuzzling his scruffy cheek into Charles’ palm. “Missed you too,” he replies, barely audible at all, melting into the cool silence of the night, the background hum of crickets in the grass around the clearing, keeping up their rhythmic lullaby well into early morning.

He longs to say more, to spend all night kissing Charles, holding him, rubbing the tension from his shoulders. Talking, soothing. Longs to reaffirm that he wants what they’d had before to continue, and ask if Charles could possibly want the same. He wants to promise himself, all of him - or at least, whatever is left - to Charles and Charles alone, a token of the affection he feels, the depth of it, the terrifying wonder of it. Feelings he couldn’t possibly explain to any level of satisfaction, but that he could surely _try_ to demonstrate if only his wretched body could keep up.

As it is, the fog pulls at his extremities, beckons for him as sirens lure sailors, and no amount of wanting can keep him from fast succumbing to sleep all over again. All he can manage is a whisper, his lame hand touching Charles’ chest in an effort to communicate without words. “Sleep with me?” he asks, and holds Charles’ gaze, urging him fully back from whatever dark place his mind had retreated to, tucked against the blue wagon wall on Arthur’s cot. Back into his own arms. Even if one doesn’t work quite so well as it used to.

Another tiny smile, and Charles rests his head on the pillow beside him, careful, scooping his hair away from his neck. Almost immediately, Arthur is cuddled into his chest, breath hot on bare skin, lodging his weak arm around Charles’ waist, pushing into him with the last of his energy.

The fidgeting pains him, tight in his expression as he shifts away from his left arm, his leaden shoulder, and tries to support them both wrapped up in Charles, every inch of his torso a dead and painful weight, muscles still jolting in irregular spasm. It takes a bit of manoeuvring to find a comfortable position, but soon they’re still and cuddled perfectly together, Charles’ arm draped loosely around Arthur’s back, keeping them close, chest to chest.

His thigh sits between Arthur’s, and he kisses his head where he tucks into the space beneath his chin, content to nuzzle gently at his unwashed hair as Arthur relaxes, breathing turning slow, synchronised inhales pressing the cotton of Arthur’s union suit to the bare skin of Charles’ chest, and out again.

“Thank you,” comes the voice from somewhere around his collarbone, and Charles gifts another kiss to his head in reply, a further indulgence that makes his heart ache with how much he’s missed it, with how desperately he wants to show Arthur as much affection as he possibly can.

It’s enough for now. It has to be. Arthur’s health is so much more important.

There’s a sigh, warmth flooding his neck where Arthur rests his head. They settle in each other’s space, Charles safe and secure with Arthur in his arms, perhaps the most relaxed he’s felt in days, grateful beyond words for every thump of Arthur’s heart beneath his palm.

 

The dawn is radiant, glowing beyond the canvas that surrounds them, unable to muffle the chorus of birdsong, the morning calls of the gulls over the lake, but it’s quiet still, and Charles listens to Arthur’s breathing as if it’s music, keeping him comforted, lazing in the early light.

“Charles?”

“Mm?”

Arthur shifts in his hold. Stretching as much as his pain will allow, he can’t help but smile as he realises the deep warmth around him is Charles’, the solid weight he’s bundled in is Charles’ thick arms, bare chest spread out before him like a shrine of offerings. The night’s fear is distant, and for a blessed while he barely remembers how they came to be sleeping together, or even why he’s been in bed for days in the first place, content to lounge in Charles’ heartbeat, his scent, his breathing, in the space between waking and conscious thought, heart full.

He huffs, lips pulled up.

“What’s funny?” Charles mumbles from somewhere above him, and Arthur can feel his breath in his hair, his nose nuzzling at his crown.

“S’nice,” Arthur hums back, thick with sleep. His left hand brushes Charles’ back where it still remains, weak but determined. “This.”

“I could get used to it.”

Arthur hums again in agreement, content. “S’just...stay here,” he murmurs, low and muffled by how his cheek is squashed by his pillow, and Charles’ trailing arm beneath it. “Cuddle. F’rever.” 

The corner of his mouth twitches with Charles’ huffed chuckle, and he tips his head back enough to look up at him, the blue of his eyes visible just for a second past sleep-heavy lids. Charles is sure his vision has been affected by the hanging torture, but the red is receding at least, more of Arthur behind them with every day. Like the rhythm of life is picking up again, slow but growing stronger, the sun rising after a long and difficult night.

Yet Charles reckons, a sunrise isn’t half as beautiful.

“Tempting offer,” Charles says, voice rumbling through his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Mm... Good.”

 

Sleeping beside each other becomes a nightly routine, as familiar and natural as sleeping itself. They fit into each other easily, wound together like tangled ivy, and the cramped cot never feels crowded despite both of their bulks, eschewing their own space to be as close as possible, wrapped up in each other’s limbs, uncaring of the heat that remains through the summer nights.

Cuddling with Charles is like having his own comfort blanket, wonderfully warm, supporting him with soft, gentle weight. His breathing is the sweetest lullaby, keeping him safe from the moment he falls asleep to the blissful painless space between waking and true awareness, when the sombre reality of the situation tends to dampen his spirits. When the pain hits. Whether it’s a coincidence or not that his nightmares seem less overwhelming when he’s sleeping in Charles’ arms, Arthur doesn’t know. But to wake up beside him is the most affirming start to every day, reassuring when he only feels pain and pessimism, when the night is full of fear and unseen horrors. Maybe it simply fulfils some innate human need in him to be held, to be touched, but he’s sure he wouldn’t feel quite so safe with anyone else.

“Gonna start writing again?”

Arthur looks up at him, squinting slightly in the light from the tent opening. Summer rolls onward outside their cocoon, observed through the shades, pulled back when Arthur feels well enough to want to see the sunshine. He’s taken to sitting in bed - managing to sit up more and more often - and listening to Charles read to him, watching him work on a new carving, sometimes stringing beads together to fashion into a new necklace, or a new browband for Taima’s bridle, content to watch the day drifting by from within the safety of the tent.

His journal is open on his knee. Arthur thumbs the blank page. “Mm. Seems ages since I did,” he says, playing with the paper’s corner.

“Good,” Charles replies, with his heartfelt honesty, always seeming so genuinely happy for Arthur. “It’ll be nice to see you draw again.”

Arthur huffs, nose scrunched, and flicks back a way to reread some of the previous journal entries, look over some sketches. The last entry must have been just before the ill-fated meeting with Colm. How long ago now? Time hasn’t seemed to have regained its rhythm yet, even though day and night have greater distinction than before; he has no idea what day it is even.

Or perhaps it was after the robbery they’d somehow managed to pull off in Valentine - he remembers writing about that, about Karen’s genius overacting and the gallop out of town, Lenny’s laughter, so full of youthful optimism. As he was once.

Before that, he had gone fishing with Javier. And Charles had smiled when he’d told him about the smallmouth bass they’d caught - or Javier had caught, more accurately - sitting together on the jetty afterwards. He’d sketched a water snake; he remembers the squarish markings, how the light had rippled on its scales, basking in the evening sun and waiting in the shadowed shallows to catch its own fish.

Past a study of various leaves and flowers, each new plant carefully labelled, there are drawings of Face Rock, of a wild mustang herd he’d seen visiting Mattock Pond to drink, and a page describing the Votes for Women protest march he’d accidentally crashed some weeks ago for Lemoyne’s own Romeo and Juliet, Beau and Penelope. Then, a two-page spread illustrating the Rhodes Parlour House, complete with parched sweetpeas drooping in the window boxes.

He flicks forward again, and finds some more recent writing. They can’t have been down this way for that long, yet a lot has happened in so short a time, playing those two families for fools. That much he remembers, though what was supposed to happen next, he doesn’t know. The whole thing seems to have fallen suspiciously silent since the fire at Caliga Hall. 

Whatever day it is, this must be the longest he’s gone without having to do _something_ in many many months.

Humming to himself, he scans his own written words, smiling absently at a sketch of Cain he comes across, tucked into the corner of a full page of writing. Something about Charles, eyes drawn to his name at once. He reads the passage.

Stops. His expression seems to slide off his face.

Charles looks at him from where he’s standing, having been folding laundered sheets, ready to put away in the trunk at the end of Arthur’s bed. “Arthur?”

As if dragged downwards, Arthur’s face falls and keeps sinking, lips parting slightly as he stares down at his journal, features caught in whatever horror the pages contain. He doesn’t notice Charles sitting down next to him on the cot, his gaze just flicking sharply to the opposite page, eyes darting with how fast he tries to read his own handwriting.

“Arthur-”

The slack nothingness in his face quickly jerks to attention, flaring like a lit fuse, and he looks up unseeing, mouth open with how suddenly his breath ratchets into heavy panting. White terror starts to pool behind his eyes, bouncing in their sockets like pebbles in a bucket as panic sloshes over his face, fast and terrified as a thousand scurrying mice. 

At once Charles grabs both of his hands, groping for them before they can clench and his body can shut down, bracing against the avalanche that hurtles down towards him. “Arthur, look at me-”

Journal falling forgotten to the bed, Arthur instantly tries to curl in on himself, knees drawn to his chest and kicking backwards, hands protecting, only they’re joined to Charles’ own, tugging his along wherever they try to flee to. At first he fights harder, an animal in a hunter’s trap, entangling itself worse the more it tries to escape, but Charles is there before the snare can tighten, putting his body between Arthur and the biting teeth.

“I’ve got you, it’s okay,” he’s saying, soft and easy, as if there’s nothing wrong in the world, and the familiar tone stirs Arthur’s mind before it can bolt completely, capturing his attention in his gentle hands.

Arthur looks up at him, wide-eyed and desperate, broken veins in his eyes raw red, like tomatoes smashed beneath a boot heel. “I’ve got you,” Charles says, balm to every open wound, soothing the frayed edges, coaxing him back from whatever spectre the journal conjured. “You’re safe. Stay with me, I’m here.”

Stuck, like a worm on the end of a fishing hook, Arthur seems to slacken, helpless, and stares blankly at Charles for a caught, heaving second, fear making his eyelashes flutter with the rapid blinking of his eyes. It’s just Charles. Charles’ handsome features, with his strong nose and heavy brow, and both his eyes intact inside his head.

An O’Driscoll’s face swims in the darkness of his peripheral vision, lurking beneath the surface; a ghostly visage of someone drowned, as Ophelia with her coronet of weeds, bloated and pale in muddy death. Except the face is formless, and red, swimming red, a pulpy mess of tissue and mangled cartilage, the remains of an eyeball and wriggling optic nerve, mangled beneath the blade of a knife. It still protrudes from the crater where the eye itself once was, a wet squelching pit of brain matter, and for a second Arthur can feel his own hand slipping from the handle with the sheer volume of blood, cut by the unceasing blade as his grip slides down, scrabbling clumsy fingers through the spilled contents of the man’s head.

The mass is steaming in the open air, spewed across his own lap, squashed beneath his shaking knees, and the smell is solid in his nostrils, a rancid lurch at the back of his throat. He gags, feeling thick greying slurry wet the front of his jeans, leaking into the dirt, fingers trembling as he tries uselessly to mash some of the viscera back into the gaping skull, fix the sickening mess his own hands have made of another’s flesh.

“You’re safe,” Charles says again, and Arthur’s eyes twitch blearily into focus, bloodshot and aching.

The dead man’s face sinks away beneath the stagnant water, and only Charles remains in view, gently holding his bloodless hands, a soft and sincere concern all the emotion he shows. No horror. No revulsion or anger. No hint of the violent murder of the remaining three, choking on their own blood to wash Arthur’s written words from their laughing mouths.

Arthur crumples forward. He falls into Charles’ chest, burying his head in the space between neck and shoulder, his right arm weakly wrapping around his back and clinging tight to his shirt. The other tries to follow, but falls by Charles’ side, limp on his hip.

“Hey,” Charles murmurs, and wraps both of his arms around him, bundling him into his lap on the small cot. “Shh. I’ve got you, you’re okay.” His hands cover him, protective, and one gently supports the back of his head, fingers instinctively stroking through Arthur’s hair, sitting with him through his shivers as the panic attack subsides, seen off before it could do more harm. “I’ve got you.”

Over Arthur’s shoulder, Charles’ attention falls on the journal, open on the bed where Arthur had been sitting, dropped as though it had burned his hands as soon as he’d read his own words. What memory had it triggered? Arthur hasn’t used it since before what happened. Could something from his own past entries have reminded him?

There’s a sniffle from Arthur’s muffled head, and Charles hums, softly shushing him, free hand starting to rub his back, soothe the persistent pains - physical and otherwise. As he hugs him, he unconsciously sways slightly, a natural movement he barely thinks about, until the open journal is unbalanced by the rocking, and several more pages spill over themselves. It settles on what must be the centre point, a spread of pencil sketches.

Charles blinks. They’re of him. Sketches of him.

Even from a few feet away at the other end of the bed, Charles can recognise himself in Arthur’s drawings, his own face recreated in meticulous graphite detail, scars and expression and all. There’s a few small portraits on the left page, some doodles around the edges - swirls and flowers and what looks like a tiny horse - and then a larger more intricate study on the right page, a close-up bust of Charles in his dotted tunic, even the beads around his neck painstakingly and exquisitely illustrated.

All Charles can do is stare, just too far away to be able to reach and pull the journal closer for a surreptitious look, even if he was willing to intrude on such a private thing without permission. But it feels as though his heart stops, caught in such a beautiful, wonderful sight. Arthur’s creativity and skill always manages to take his breath away. With just a pencil, he’s able to create masterpieces unlike Charles has ever seen outside books. Perfect pictures of detail, light and shadow, texture, movement. It may as well be witchcraft to Charles, and he feels a swell of pride as he stares at the drawings, not to mention a rush of affection, knowing Arthur chose to draw _him_ , chose to pull something remarkable from his unremarkable face, and keep it close in his journal of his most important thoughts.

He pretends he hasn’t seen.

Instead he presses a kiss to Arthur’s head, holding him as his breathing returns to normal, and the frantic tension in his shoulders starts to droop.

It takes a while for him to settle, slumping in Charles’ arms. The sun shifts outside the tent, rolling through the afternoon, but neither of them move except to find a more comfortable position for Arthur, side by side against the wagon wall. He sits with his legs over Charles’ lap, cuddled into his chest, and the memories of his escape from the O’Driscolls return to the dark space at the back of his head with the passing sunlight, the realm of nightmares and panic attacks, banished until the next time a clump of something growing there breaks off and floods the drain, spit up into the tub.

“I...killed them,” he says, eventually, voice hoarse and weak, muffled as his cheek rests on Charles’ breast. “Killed...alla them there.”

Charles frowns, but doesn’t let his hand stop where it’s still rubbing Arthur’s back, tucked around him to keep him close. “The O’Driscolls?”

“Mm. Choked one. Took his knives. Couldn’t…”

He swallows, throat dry. “Couldn’t sh-shoot. Eyes...hands wasn’t workin’.”

Silent, Charles just squeezes his other hand, holding Arthur’s left across his own lap. He hasn’t spoken yet about any of it, only revealing glimpses in the context of his nightmares, mumbling in his sleep, or else babbling once awake before his consciousness catches up. Listening to him talk about what he remembers feels to Charles like he’s been doused in ice water. Yet he also knows it’s necessary. Important, no matter how hard it is to hear.

“Knifed the next. Then…”

Limp and still, Arthur’s head rises and falls with the rhythm of Charles’ breath, rocked only by the movement of his chest in and out. As if there’s no energy left in him to hold himself up, lending Charles his weight to carry while he can’t.

“They was…” Arthur stares intently at Charles’ thumb, rubbing circles into his own palm. “Readin’. My- My... They was readin’ it out. Laughin’.”

“Your journal?”

Shirt rucked slightly beneath his cheek, Arthur nods his head. He’s quiet for a moment more, and Charles can almost feel the pain in him, his own heart breaking at the low rasp of his voice, the deep exhaustion it betrays. That’s what had caused the reaction. The O’Driscolls hadn’t deemed it cruel enough just to violate his freedom and his body, they had to take his private thoughts too? To laugh about?

Charles would kill them all in a heartbeat.

“Forgot til...just read it again. Remembered,” Arthur mumbles, burying the distress in Charles’ shirt, the warmth of him beneath it, the smell of woodsmoke clinging to the fabric. “Killed alla them. Real bad.”

“I would’ve killed them too,” Charles says, voice unintentionally low, growling in controlled fury.

Arthur huffs, and nuzzles Charles’ chest where his head rests. “Thought...it’d be fine,” he whispers, voice creaking to an even further low, deep and cold, like a dug grave. “If I just...died. Right there. With the...corpses.” His eyes fall shut. “Didn’t...wanna keep goin’.”

Speechless, Charles has to force his hand to keep rubbing Arthur’s back, startled into momentary stillness, frozen in the horror of Arthur’s words. His face seems to shudder with an unshared grief, icy agony tucked behind his features like a thunderstorm that doesn’t breach the clouds, raging within itself, lightning clawing silently behind the swirling sky.

Even as he holds Arthur’s hand, breathes into his hair, does everything in his power to keep calm, he can’t stop the choking distress that pulls at him, the swell of guilt and anger that slops about in his gut. Arthur had to escape on his own, and put himself through all kinds of further hell just to try to survive. Had reached such a point - such a horrific, heart-wrenching low - that death seemed preferable to carrying on.

Charles wants to scream.

The pain he must have been in, the desperation and fear he must have felt - all because Charles hadn’t followed his instinct sooner. All because Dutch hadn’t rubbed his two brain cells together and spent one second using common sense. Couldn’t figure out that Arthur wouldn’t just leave without a word, wouldn’t ignore a planned meeting, wouldn’t disappear unless something terrible had happened. How arrogant could a man be, to leave someone he claims to love as a son in such a dire situation, without even an inkling that something was wrong?

Arthur suffered so much more than he could have done. For so much longer. So unnecessarily. To the point of longing for death. And he doesn’t even remember that Dutch didn’t come. His mentor, his father figure- He wasn’t coming. Arthur would have died no matter how hard he’d fought, and Dutch, Hosea, John- None of them would have come for him.

He’d have died that night.

The anguish he’d felt some days ago returns with a vengeance, and settles like granite in Charles’ heart, a suffocating weight in his core. Unconsciously, he holds Arthur a little more tightly, squeezing his left hand, and presses his lips to Arthur’s head, resting there as if to give a long, unmoving kiss, breathing in his scent, trying to drown the smoldering kindling of fury before it ignites.

Solid in his arms, shutting his eyes against his chest, Arthur’s trust in him is plain to see in how he settles on Charles’ breast, and yet even that feels fragile, feels dishonest somehow in his head, some dark irrational voice in him intent on adding fuel to the fire, piling more and more guilt like logs ready to burn. It twists his certain, assured fondness into anxiety, highlights the newness of their relationship and how easily it could have been taken away, protests that Arthur might not feel the same way for him after this ordeal, and his persistent attempts to reaffirm that bond - the kisses, the touching, the unfailing care - are unrequited at best, and taking advantage of a vulnerable friend in an hour of need at worst. 

Especially worrying is the fear that once Arthur finds out that Charles could have come sooner, could have done more, acted faster, he will react with anger, and that it won’t be unwarranted. When Arthur knows the truth of his escape, will he even wish to remain friends, let alone anything more?

Should he tell him? Apologise? 

And if he does, will he inadvertently reveal that Dutch had made no plan to look for him? Had hardly noticed his absence at all, and it was for that reason that Charles came alone, that Charles only found him after days of inaction, after Arthur had made his own gruelling escape.

Charles swallows, and shuts his eyes as he rests against Arthur’s fair head, lips pressed tight together on his crown. Is it just delaying the inevitable, to keep up their gentle romance? His attempts to show Arthur how deeply he cares for him? Knowing that when he recovers well enough, Arthur will no longer need his help, and any growing resentment about the specifics of his return to camp will surely surface, pushing them apart no matter how desperately Charles wants to cling, to hold tight to the one thing in his life that doesn’t make his mere existence in this world feel like a splinter under skin, like a thorn that’s wormed its way into flesh too far to be dug out and sits festering where it feels most uncomfortable, most out of place.

“You deserve...so much better than this world,” Charles mumbles, voice again slipping deep and quiet, clenched inside him with the last bastion of his rationality, certain that his worrying is unfounded and unhelpful. His lips move on Arthur’s scalp, breath hot in his hair, and Arthur scoffs from below him, shaking his head against Charles’ chest.

“Lotta things I deserve,” he says, nearly a whisper and the texture of gravel. “‘Better’ ain’t it.”

Charles pulls back to look at him, enough that Arthur silently regrets speaking, longs for Charles’ touch again, placating him with the affection he gives so easily. As if it truly is natural and effortless for Charles to care for him, and won’t wither when Charles gets tired of cleaning up his mess, literally, of being nursemaid to a grown man. He’d started to believe it was deserved, before. Started to let himself hope. 

“Men like me…” Arthur frowns to himself. Bloodied entrails cling to his fingers, and the left five are so lame he can’t even wipe them clean. “We...made the world cruel.”

Rasping still, he takes a breath, and shifts away from Charles, hauling his legs from where they lie across his lap, wincing with the effort. Brow heavy, he snatches the discarded journal, and only looks for a second at the content of the open pages before shutting it, tossing it roughly to the bedside table as if it’s a used tissue. “Ain’t no ‘better’ for...for bad l-like me.”

“Arthur.”

Expression pinched, Arthur stops. For a long moment he can only breathe, waiting for the worst of the aching to pass into the permanent background noise, the foundation of tingling, gnawing, deep pain that stays with him constantly. And then a new sensation - Charles’ hand, finding his. Charles takes it gently in his own, patiently sitting beside him still, providing his unintrusive support, as he always does.

Opening his eyes, Arthur sighs. If anyone deserves a better world, it’s Charles. He glances across at him, weary, apologetic downturn to his expression. Even he himself is tired of his own whining; Charles is likely sick to death.

“You don’t need to apologise,” Charles says, before Arthur can even think of the necessary words. He raises his eyebrows. “I can see in your face you were going to.”

“Ha,” Arthur huffs, shoulders hunched forward, one far more lopsided than the other. “Know me too well.”

“Mhm. And I know the world is cruel.”

Gentle, he squeezes Arthur’s hand, thumb starting its usual routine of stroking up and down where it can reach. “But you’re proof there’s good in it.”

Dropping his gaze, Arthur just sighs, soft and tired. It must be exhausting having to pick up the shreds of his self-esteem, as Charles does so often. A thankless task. Trying to glue him back together when none of the broken shards even match, like being asked to complete a jigsaw puzzle having been given half the pieces from one box and half from another.

“I’m proof s-some folks...deserve the shit what happens to ‘em.”

“You don’t deserve _any_ of this,” Charles says, firm but achingly tender, almost pleading. “None of it.”

“Certainly don’t deserve no good neither.”

“Of course you do-”

“Good things don’t happen to men like me, Charles! I ain’t-”

“And I _ain’t_ having a discussion,” Charles snaps, anger flaring. “So stop _arguing_ , get your stubborn ass in bed and rest.”

There’s a moment of bristling silence, gazes locked and fuses lit.

The fierceness in Charles dies quickly, eyebrows pulled down. He looks away. “You’ll hurt more later being sat up so long,” he adds softly, apologetic himself, as if it’s his fault Arthur’s in pain at all. Guilt keeps his eyes averted, fixed on some space in the middle distance. It makes Arthur want to sob, all hint of his own frustration evaporating, quick as a snuffed candle.

Silent, Arthur does as he’s told, shifting gingerly back towards the head of the bed and rearranging his pillows to his liking. As he straightens his legs beneath the covers, wincing, Charles gets up, and helps him lie back, kneeling at his bedside, hand lingering on Arthur’s arm before it falls noticeably away.

“If you wanted me in bed...s-so bad,” Arthur mumbles, resorting to humour by way of apology. “Shoulda just asked.”

“Ha.”

Charles snickers the ghost of a laugh, a breathy skeletal patter, like snow falling on a roof. The crude line seems to work. His eyes soften, fond, and he finally meets Arthur’s gaze again, a fragility in his expression that Arthur hasn’t seen before, usually so very self-assured, even in sadness. “Don’t tease me, asshole,” he mumbles, his own small struggle to find humour, always trying to make things better. Always trying to fix.

He sighs, surely just as tired as Arthur feels. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to snap.”

“M’sorry too,” Arthur replies, voice tiny. “Ain’t...used to... Kindness, I guess.”

Momentary heartbreak again flits across Charles’ face, wrangled meticulously under control a second later, settling into the same solemn expression as before. The crease is deep between his eyebrows. Arthur longs to smooth it gently with his thumb.

“I mean it,” Charles says, barely louder than the rustling of the canvas sheets surrounding them, blown by the occasional breeze from the lake. “I always mean it.”

Hesitant, he leans closer, and brushes the hair from Arthur’s forehead, careful of the healing wound there, dark above his eyebrow. Only as Arthur nuzzles into his hand does he let himself touch his face further, brushing the backs of his fingers over his cheekbone, so soft as to be reverent.

“Never again,” he murmurs, almost as if he’s speaking only to himself, an oath whispered in the apse of a silent cathedral; a promise, or a prayer. Something so much holier than a covered wagon with some sheets thrown over it deserves to hear. His hand frames Arthur’s face, eyes hard as he speaks, voice like a clenched, trembling fist. “No one will ever hurt you again. No one will dare. And never, _ever_ will you deserve to be hurt.”

Swallowing past the stop in his throat, Arthur can only nod, unable to find any words with which to answer. He nuzzles at Charles’ hand again, and shifts forward as Charles leans further over the cot, meeting him in a halting kiss, chaste and tentative, like a held breath.

When he pulls back, it’s reluctant, clinging with a silent longing, and Arthur’s murky eyes fall half-lidded, only a sliver of colour visible amongst the burst vessels, the fair shade of his eyelashes. He watches Charles’ eyes open, brown as rich as earth, pupils constricting in the light, highlighting the tiny flecks of amber within the iris. Far too beautiful for a threadbare cot in Lemoyne, for a stained union suit and unkempt beard, too many days unwashed and spent making everyone’s lives far worse.

“I’ll...fix you some food,” Charles says, and presses one last kiss to his overgrown lips before he moves away, eyes averted, straightening up to stand.

An answering hum, and Arthur watches him leave through the canvas shades, out into the bright day, where the air is surely fresh and sweet with magnolia scent, abuzz with insects, conversation, life. Where the gloom doesn’t hang so oppressive and thick. It seems a world away from the dim tent, a microcosm of sickness and silence, ghosts lurking in every corner.

It’s a wonder why Charles returns at all.

 

As the days roll on, hot and bright with the height of summer, Arthur spends more and more time sitting up in bed, able to support his weight a little better each time. The bruises recede slowly, cuts scabbing over, fingernails regrowing where they had broken. He can better help Charles with the dressing changes, the sponge baths, the long list of tasks he needs help with every single day, so much less awkward once he’s not just a dead weight for Charles to try to move by himself, strong as he is. Although it’s gradual, measured in moments and barely noticeable when he’s living through it, it’s still progress.

Once his mind can cope with the concentration required, he reads, or else listens to Charles read to him from his collection of various books, and doodles absently in the corners of pages, silently thanking whichever uncaring god thought to save him from the further cruelty of injuring his right hand instead of just his left. Not being able to hold a pencil at all might just have been the final nail in his half-open coffin.

His journal still lies discarded on the bedside table, untouched since the first time and deliberately ignored, Arthur instead taking to sketching in the margins of books, of old postcards and newspapers surrendered by Hosea - any paper he can find that _isn’t_ the journal, unwilling to give it his attention lest another memory surface and throttle him like a badly-chewed hunk of bread.

More often that not, he finds himself sketching Charles without truly meaning to, capturing him at different angles, observing the shapes and structure of his face. Confined to his bed as he is, Charles is the most constant feature of his days, spending as much time as possible with him when awake and sleeping beside him at night. It’s probably excessive, in the others’ opinions, but Arthur finds he cares even less now than he did before. Despite his ever-lurking worries, Charles feels like comfort. And he needs that.

Besides, the grim mood around camp has persisted, despite his recovering past the worst of the infection, no longer oozing pus from the hole in his shoulder, or vomiting his stomach contents as his body tries desperately to fight the fever. ‘Out of the woods’, Hosea says. The deathly quiet subsides gradually, as it does in himself, but the life and energy of summer hasn’t returned to Clemens Point, a sombre cloud lingering over the clearing, like a permanent mist blown in from the lake.

He sees them in passing; Tilly arranges fresh flowers in an old milk jug to place on his bedside table, and Sadie brings him a cup of coffee occasionally after breakfast, always making the same joke about it surely tasting like ‘burnt dirt’. On her limited voyages into Scarlett Meadows, Mary-Beth manages to steal an old book he hasn’t read from a homestead near Rhodes, and gives it to Charles to pass along to him, in the hopes it will cheer him up - an 1883 edition of a pirate story, ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s appreciated, in the small way any well wishes are, and he shares a joke with Charles as they both put on their best ‘pirate voices’ to make each other laugh, but the change in their demeanours, their interactions with him, is noticeable. 

None of them stay for more than a short while at best, not even Hosea, and Arthur is admittedly relieved, glad to be left alone by everyone except Charles, glad to spend the days without seeing their pitying faces, their sad and coddling voices, when it becomes clear that’s all they can offer. If they don’t avoid him entirely, every stilted conversation is full of jumbled apologies, clumsy attempts not to accidentally upset him, mention anything too emotional, tiptoeing around him as though he’s a landmine.

It’s...uncomfortable.

He can’t really blame them. And he knows he isn’t being the most welcoming of patients. But just sitting in bed with the canvas drawn slightly open is enough exposure that he feels unsure of himself, simply from seeing the camp beyond let alone trying to interact with it. Unsteady, and not only because of the damage to his ankles. Watched somehow, even though everyone who happens to pass by the wagon deliberately avoids looking in; Pearson, the Reverend, Karen, Lenny, Miss Grimshaw - skirting around the possibility of meeting his eyes. He feels both neglected and ogled at once.

It’s why Charles’ company is so welcome. He loves Hosea, he loves John in his own way, loves the girls like sisters, but he can’t help but feel their discomfort, their guilt, and how it bleeds into the way they look at him, obvious in their downcast eyes, their snatched glances. It’s as if he’s something ugly, the proverbial elephant in the campsite, avoided and unwelcome as Visigoths at the gates of Rome, as a heap of salt to a sore eye. Yet also something grotesque, morbidly fascinating like the scene of a public execution, a hideous scene that the crowd cannot look away from. Somehow as riveting as it is repulsive.

And even without the external stresses, everything within him feels changed too. There’s a gloom over him, like a threatening storm cloud, heavy with its unspent rain. Ghosts, monsters lurk in the darkness beyond his safe corner, prowling the outside that he can’t see in its entirety from his bed. Every unknown sound is a potential threat, a reminder, a trigger to a forgotten memory, and he can’t trust his head not to react without his permission, spiralling out of his control faster than he can keep himself together. It leaves him nervous, jumpy, uncertain of his own mind and the body it controls.

Physically too, the damage done has shattered not just flesh but confidence as well, all but destroying a sense of self that wasn’t particularly strong to begin with. His skin is littered with conspicuous cigarette burns, with bruises and welts, fingerprints, remaining still after so many days, like brands on cattle. Reminders of touches he hadn’t consented to, of his failure to protect himself or fight back. Wearing the evidence left behind by unnamed men, spoiled and dirtied, like a saloon girl after a rough night, sticky thighs and new injuries, cast aside on stained sheets like refuse.

He feels used. Stripped and humiliated. Like even fully clothed he’s naked, on display to every eye. And he’s sure the others can tell without needing to be told, how they touched him, taunted him, that there are bruises deep in his groin, that he can feel the neck of a whiskey bottle pushing violently past his lips, that he still flinches when he undoes his own union suit to redress or wash. He’s sure they can see Colm touching him just by looking at him, creeping over his chest like a hideous insect; sure they see him as a pale imitation of the man that was once Arthur, as no man at all, a cheap puppet clasped in someone else’s hand, sagging in on itself without support.

That’s not to mention the catastrophe that is his shoulder - doing better, so Charles says - but still a grossly ugly wound, a burnt black tear through most of his pectoral. It will be a permanent disfigurement at best, compounding the feeling that he’s wearing someone else’s clothes, like his own skin somehow doesn’t fit anymore, or has shrunk in the wash.

He isn’t sure how to _be_ himself, let alone be treated like it.

For Charles though, it seems easy. Charles’ reassurance, his familiar humour, even his touches - confident and gentle, as they always are - help to instill some sense of normalcy in Arthur, grounding him before anxiety digs its claws in. Their friendship becomes his bedrock, and when he feels most isolated, he depends on the stable foundation of kindness and care Charles offers, sure he can see glimpses of his old self lurking somewhere in the affection in Charles’ eyes.

Finding him - the Arthur Charles sees - is another matter, if he even still exists at all.

 

It’s another week before he tries to stand.

“Damn,” John says, lingering in the entrance to the tent, hesitating before the threshold like a relative called upon to identify the dead, unsure if he truly wants to go any further. Arthur’s expression darkens from where he’s sat on his bed, elbows leant on his own knees. If there was anywhere he could hide, he’d much rather be there. “You look like a barrel load of shit.”

“Mornin’ to you too,” Arthur snaps, and scowls up at him. “Feel like it’n all, so don’t even start.”

“I wasn’t gonna start!”

“You was fixin’ to, I can see it in your fuck-ugly face. Save your mocking, I ain’t in the mood.”

Charles rolls his eyes. This was a bad idea.

The first few times he’d tried to help Arthur stand alone hadn’t gone so well. He needs another pair of hands to provide balance on both sides of him, the load too much for his torso to take just yet. Hosea’s joints give him enough pain as it is, so he hadn’t wanted to bother him with it. That meant...

“Like you saved yours back after them mountains? You ain’t let me forget two scratches-” 

“ _Two scratches_? Horseshit, your bitch ass was laid up for weeks, fondlin’ your face and groanin’ like you was a dog shittin’ peach pits! ‘Two scratches’ my ass-”

“There you go again!” John snorts, throwing up his hands. “How come you don’t gotta forget that bullshit, but I gotta forget right fucking quick when you get your balls busted by O’Driscolls? ‘Cause your dick been ridden too hard already? How nice for you, ya hypocrite.”

“ _Hypocrite_? Yeah ‘cause gettin’ _tortured_ is the same as swanning your idiot self up a fuckin’ mountain, in a _blizzard_ , to play chicken with a wolf pack! Dumbass sack of shit-”

“Keep bleatin’ you ornery old son of a bitch-”

“And make sure you run outta bullets first-”

“ _Enough_! Both of you!” Charles snaps, suddenly standing from Arthur’s side to dominate the dim space, a physical barrier between them and their petty bickering.

It’s the first time they’ve really seen each other since what happened - John seemingly very reluctant to visit the invalid across the camp, for whatever reason, Charles doesn’t want to guess - and Charles had suspected it wouldn’t be a tender moment of brotherly bonding, despite a small slim hope. Both of them are too stubborn for their own good, and Arthur’s struggling under even more weight than usual, bowed and buckling beneath the pain, the physical and mental toll of his experience, all the more difficult now his mind is present enough to understand how much he’s struggling. His temper is frayed, and John always seems to be the perfect tinder.

Still, Charles himself isn’t in the mood either.

“You’re both grown men, act like it,” he says tersely, and sits heavily back down.

He huffs, a sharp exhale of tension, and sees Arthur’s frown turn apologetic in his peripheral vision, drooping like a wilting flower. John too, shuffles his boots in the crabby grass by the makeshift tent entrance, surely wishing to be anywhere else.

“Sorry, alright?” Arthur mumbles, all the threat having gone from him, his snapping just a front, like a terrified dog’s bluffing growl. “I’m just…” Tired? Embarrassed? Miserable?

All of the above.

“You look it,” John says quietly, but without the bite of before, awkwardly adjusting his gun belt, thumbs catching on his twin holsters.

He and Charles share a look, though what exactly it communicates, Charles isn’t sure himself, deflating by Arthur’s side on the cot with another taut sigh, belly round and slumped like a sack. A small gap stays between them, respectable, unlikely to raise John’s eyebrows if he were to notice.

Beside him, Arthur sags in turn, hunched over himself like a pale, misshapen piece of pastry, undercooked and sad. He’d managed to put jeans on with Charles’ help, unsure he wanted to see John in just his underwear what with everything else, but his union suit is open across much of his chest, and the bandage covering his shoulder is clearly visible, almost a separate garment in itself. Despite it all, he still feels bare, naked, wanting nothing but to lie back down and pull his blankets up over his head. Wait for the world to go away.

If John _is_ looking, he doesn’t make it obvious, to his credit, lingering at the edge of the tent space, the hems of his jeans torn and split by the constant wear from his boot heels, trodden beneath them like stirrups as he shifts his weight, strands of fabric caught in his spurs. “You uh… You had us worried, old man,” he says, stilted, like the words are unwieldy in his mouth.

“Yeah, well… I’m alive. Didn’t want you gettin’ all the sympathy.”

Arthur huffs a humourless chuckle, and John seems to relax on hearing it, more comfortable with irreverence than any tricky emotions, as Arthur is. “Or all the ugly, looks like,” he says, rasping his own snicker when Arthur snorts again. “But y’know, folks say ladies like a feller with scars, so...there’s still hope for ya.”

“Well it ain’t worked in your case, clearly.”

Even Charles’ mouth twists, an attempt at a smirk that only Arthur is familiar enough to recognise, sharing a glance at the mention of Arthur’s hopes with women. Funnily enough, the state of his appearance isn’t his biggest obstacle in that department.

But John laughs too, and for a moment the arguing is forgotten, sibling relationships as changeable as the wind at sea, even the adopted ones. “So,” he says, looking between Arthur and Charles. “We gonna get your ass up?”

“Apparently,” Arthur replies, and looks to Charles, whose plan it was in the first place to include John, to make it easier on Arthur’s suffering muscles.

It’s been so long since Arthur interacted much with anyone but Charles, and Charles can’t help but worry it will make it more difficult for him in the long term if he isolates himself completely, no matter how sincerely he understands the want to do so. John though is his friend, and sometimes his brother, even when they spend most of their time together squabbling. It seemed like the lesser evil to ask for his help, rather than let Arthur struggle on alone and potentially hurt himself all the more in the process.

“You feel alright?” Charles asks, casual tone belying the concern he has for Arthur, always.

“Mhm. ‘Bout as bad as usual.”

“You take the right? I got his left.”

John broaches the canvas, and enters with all the eagerness of a fly hurling itself towards a spider’s web. Too tall for his own good, he looks permanently uncomfortable in the small space, hesitating before moving closer to Arthur’s bed, and again as he stands next to him. Every movement is second-guessed and unconvincing, bewildered like a hungry mosquito on a tropical beach, full of bathing people with bared skin - he knows what he should be doing, yet isn’t sure how to go about it, or even where to start.

“Fish or cut bait, Marston, I ain’t your grandmother,” Arthur grumbles, holding up his right arm for John to take, Charles already supporting his other side.

“Shut up.”

Cautious, John stoops, and takes Arthur’s arm as if only just noticing Arthur has arms, wrapping it half-heartedly around his own shoulders to let Arthur lean on him. He shifts awkwardly towards him, unwilling to stand close enough to truly hold him, like he’s some kind of diseased leper and touching his body will pass on the contagion.

Arthur attempts to bridge the gap, hang onto him as he tries to find his feet. Their legs brush in the commotion. Instinctively, John steps aside, loath to touch him, only Arthur, still sitting, can’t follow, hissing at the pull through his chest muscles as his arm is stretched up around John’s retreating shoulders, left to fall limply back to his side without support. “Dammit-”

“You weigh a goddamn ton.”

“Jesus wept- Put your arm- You gotta _hold_ me.”

“I don’t wanna hurt you!”

“It hurts everywhere, you can’t make it worse, just hold round my waist.”

Arthur bodily manhandles John into a better position with his only working hand, all but clinging to him side to side, having him wrap his arm around his back, as Charles’ is, joint on his lumbar spine above his hips. He holds him tight, physically closer than they’ve been in years. “Miracle you ever got a girl pregnant if that’s how you was touchin’ her. Flappin’ at her like a dead trout. Amazin’ you found the right hole.”

“Yeah, you’d know plenty ‘bout that, huh,” John snaps, suddenly venomous, and Arthur goes still.

Somehow, the air seems to leave the tent. What little positive feeling there was drains at once, swirling down an open plughole, and beneath Charles’ arm, every muscle in Arthur’s torso tenses, jaw clenching shut like a slammed door. He stares blankly into the middle distance, and Charles is left wondering what on Earth just happened, bracketing Arthur’s side and watching his expression turn hard in real time in front of him, like he’s just seen a ghost walk through the wall.

Immediately John seems to know he’s gone too far, sobering instantly, mouth falling slack as he tries to find something else to say to remedy the insult. “Shit... I didn’t-”

“Don’t.”

Neither of them look at each other, and Charles is left feeling like he’s missed some vital piece of information, some context that would explain Arthur’s reaction. To his ears, it sounds like a sharp but hardly devastating jab at Arthur’s sexual prowess, or lack of it. But the cold distress in Arthur’s reaction tells him that isn’t what John was referring to, or not all of it, that there’s some deeper meaning beneath the surface that he isn’t privy to.

As it is he can only sit as an uncomfortable third wheel, excluded from understanding and unsure how to pick up the pieces of the situation.

This was definitely a bad idea.

“Arthur?” he tries, voice small.

“Mm. On three,” Arthur says, steely and tight. “One, two-”

Both John’s and Charles’ arms regain their hold around him, and on three Arthur pushes his weight further forward over his knees, already trembling with the load. Leaning heavily into Charles on his left, he straightens with a shaking breath, legs threatening to collapse, face scrunched in effort and pain as he slowly stands, settling unsteady on both socked feet.

“You good?”

“Mm.”

“Just breathe for a second.”

Arthur does, head spinning with the rush of blood after so long in bed, trying to right itself and decipher where his body is, which muscles it can find to move and which it can’t. The hole in his proprioception gapes, throwing off his balance, but Charles stays steady, sharing the weight through his own comparatively perfect shoulder, taking some of the strain the missing nerves can’t feel.

“There,” he says, gentle with easy praise. “I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”

Staying silent, John simply bookends Arthur’s other side, face blank, lank hair fallen across his forehead. Charles glances toward him over Arthur’s head, but gets no response.

“Okay,” Arthur manages, steadying himself with several deep breaths, voice clenched with his muscles, trembling just as much. “I’m okay.”

“Pain?”

“Mm. Ribs. Shoulder a-and ankles.”

“Try a step?”

“O-Okay.”

Another few breaths, and Arthur concentrates. Slowly, he moves one foot, toes shuffling forward across the ground, his centre of balance pitching sideways to naturally lessen the load on his mangled muscles. Charles is a solid weight there, bolstering the weakness of his left torso, absorbing the quaking of Arthur’s joints with a steady, unceasing warmth.

It’s not much of a step, and takes an age to complete, Arthur panting by the time he brings his trailing foot to join the first, even more of a struggle to bear any weight on his left to try to move the right, but still Charles smiles at him as if it’s an achievement to be proud of, and Arthur is almost convinced that it is.

They help him shuffle the single step back to the cot, and slowly lower him down to sit again, Arthur pale, sweating as he tries to get his breath back, knees shaking with exertion. Charles’ arm lingers on his waist as John moves away, wrapped around him in a protective half-embrace, hand rubbing gently over his side where it rests. “I’m proud of you,” Charles murmurs, allowing his affection to shine through into his voice and expression for just a moment, eyes smiling, full of admiration.

“I, uh…” John clears his throat. He straightens up and takes a step away, glancing towards them both, surely noticing the intimacy between them, how Arthur leans into Charles’ touch instinctively, comforted by him. Arthur doesn’t look up. If possible, he looks even worse than he did before, bent in the middle like a half-empty ointment tube and breathing hard, sweat in the hair on his chest. “I gotta...go do somethin’ for...Abigail.”

He gestures weakly to the side, and it’s probably the least convincing lie he’s ever told, but neither Charles nor Arthur seem to care, sat together on the narrow cot like two sardines in a can. Charles at least looks at him, but his expression is taut. Thinking. “Thanks, John,” he says, genuine despite the hard stare.

Hesitant, John nods. Shifting his weight as he moves to leave, his attention is drawn to the wall of the wagon behind the pair, where Arthur has pinned some photos, and what looks to be a piece of paper. In the lantern light, and the small wedge of sunlight streaming in from outside, he can see that it’s a drawing, a child’s, with thick crayon lines in various bright colours and clumsy lettering traced over a much neater pencil message.

‘To Uncle Arthur. Get better soon! Love Jack’

For the second time in barely ten minutes, the air seems to still. John stares at the drawing for a long moment, his expression an odd indistinguishable jumble, not bothering to hide it as Charles follows his gaze out of sheer curiosity and finds the cause of his shift in demeanour.

John clears his throat again a second later, and the spell is broken.

“Good… Good to see you, Morgan,” he says absently, and then adds “Arthur” as an afterthought, taking his leave from the tent, ducking out into the day beyond, leaving Arthur and Charles in silence, still leant together, sharing their strength.

Charles helps him sit back against his pillows, propped comfortably between upright and flat so he can rest, take off his jeans, sip some water, wipe the sweat from his brow. Only after a while does Charles decide to ask about what happened, when Arthur is relaxed once more.

“Feeling okay?”

Arthur hums in reply. “Mm. Aching.”

“Haven’t lost your sharp tongue at least,” Charles says softly, and his mouth twitches into a good-natured curve, a fraction of a smile.

Scoffing, Arthur looks down, fiddling with one of the buttons of his union suit, sweat drying on his chest. Bickering with John wasn’t helpful. All it’s accomplished is draining more of his energy, diminishing the small success of managing to stand up for the first time in- He isn’t even sure how long. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t...help.”

Charles just shrugs. “Sometimes he deserves it.”

“Ha. Sometimes I do too. He- He always knows how to...get to me.”

“Isn’t that what families are for?”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“Me neither,” Charles says, and proffers his understated smile again, looking across at Arthur as he rests back into his pillows, clearly suffering from the exertion. “He said something that upset you,” he says, not really a question, but a curious statement. Open-ended.

“Yeah,” Arthur replies, and fidgets in place, his body sagging.

“We don’t have to talk about it. Just...didn’t want you to think I was ignoring it.”

With a huff, Arthur grants him a weary smile, always touched by Charles’ thoughtful honesty, by how much he seems to care. “Thank you,” he says, and reaches out his hand, waving his fingers until Charles gives him his own hand in return, and lets Arthur bring it to his lips, pressing a small kiss to a tiny white scar beneath Charles’ first knuckle, a colourless chip in his smooth skin. “I… I don’t...really wanna...go into it.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’ll- It’s kinda-”

“Arthur,” Charles says, soft, looking at him with his honey stare, warm like a hand on Arthur’s cheek, like a permanent embrace, beckoning him as summer welcomes swallows, journeying north with gold in their flight feathers. “I mean it. It’s okay.”

Words washed away, a message written into sand on a beach, erased by the foaming tide, Arthur shuts his mouth. Relief flows over him and he exhales, just holding Charles’ gentle gaze for a moment, grateful for how he never pushes, never asks for anything beyond what Arthur offers to give, never pries past any boundaries. Arthur’s not even sure he’s ever thought to _have_ boundaries before, let alone see them respected. Yet somehow Charles seems to instinctively understand him, never seems unhappy when something is hard to talk about.

“One day,” Arthur says, studying Charles’ hand, interlocking their fingers on his belly. “Promise.”

Nodding, Charles just keeps his gaze. He doesn’t ask for any more clarification or context, the same peaceful look of fondness on his face, longing but not demanding, simply content to sit beside Arthur and enjoy his company in whatever capacity it’s offered.

 

Small steps. A few more each day.

Soon he can stand without two pairs of hands helping him, just Charles’ arm around his waist, and after that, he manages some steps unaided, unable to help how he smiles when he can cross the tent with Charles simply holding his hand, relief overcoming the embarrassment and shame that he can barely walk in the first place.

There’s no ceremony when he emerges from the tent for the first time. Like a fledgling bird taking its first brave steps towards the edge of its nest, his hair is ruffled and unwashed, thick fuzz coating his cheeks and jaw, movement hesitant and unbalanced. Charles holds him, firm but not overbearing, letting Arthur take the lead. It’s an odd two-step, an unlikely pair of dancers, making their way slowly out into the camp for the first time in an age, heading towards the central oak.

“You good?”

“Mhm.”

“Keep breathing.”

They reach the rectangular dominoes table, set out between Hosea’s shelter and Dutch’s tent in the shadow of the oak tree, and Arthur clings to Charles and the wooden surface as he sits down, catching his breath. Dark circles under his eyes, cheeks hollow from the weight he’s lost, he truly does resemble a scruffy gosling, grey and unkempt, stubby wings surely far too small to ever fly.

Charles squeezes his hand on the table surface, and sits across from him, letting Arthur see the pride in his expression, warm and wistful, and never patronising. Huffing, Arthur looks down at the knotted pattern in the wood, still breathing hard. How Charles always manages to look at him like he’s a piece of art, after so long seeing him barely coping with daily living, he cannot understand. A piece of trash would be more accurate.

“I’ll make lunch,” Charles says, “Stay put,” and touches Arthur’s good shoulder as he passes, heading off towards the chuckwagon.

At once, Arthur feels alone. The air of afternoon feels heavy, and the now commonplace quiet is all the more noticeable. Even the insects seem to be staying away, deterred by the solemn mood. As he looks around the Point, it’s like seeing life through a frosted window, watching while unable to participate, observing from some invisible sideline and barred from joining in.

Uncle is playing the banjo by the campfire, jigging to his own rhythm. John and Javier are playing cards, Abigail and Sadie sharing coffee on the beach. He can’t spot everyone, but even with the few he can see he feels disconnected, like a ghost drifting through a house he used to live in, finding all the furniture has changed position, and the people living within can’t see him despite how he calls and cries.

When he turns away, tracing the whorls and knots in the wood, he feels eyes on him. Javier glances over from the table past the chuckwagon, and turns quickly away to study his cards once spotted. Swanson and Strauss watch him from the medicine wagon, and when Arthur looks up, they’re suddenly engrossed in their own conversation. Mid-walk, Lenny changes course completely to avoid his table, heading down to the beach instead of through the camp, and although Mary-Beth notices him as she walks behind Dutch’s tent, and Arthur can see the conflict and sadness in her expression, she waves - a desperate, uneasy flourish of a few fingers - averts her eyes, and hurries on.

Nobody knows how to interact with him. The music seems to cease at the sight of him. Laughter gurgles and dies, conversation dries up. It’s like he’s an unwelcome relative, a dusty heirloom no one really knows what to do with, and so has been tucked in a corner for the woodworm and clothes moths, hoping he’ll crumble out of existence.

Arthur sighs. He hunches forward over the table, and feels exposed. Even more so than when Charles cleans his shoulder wound and repacks it in the mornings, needing him shirtless, baring his chest. His scars, his scruffy hair, the slight dough of his belly, the blushing patches of rosacea and dry skin. Even then, it doesn’t feel as unpleasant as this. Even Charles helping him with basic personal hygiene doesn’t feel as unpleasant as this.

How can Charles seeing him next to naked be more comfortable than being fully-clothed amongst people he’s known for years?

He sighs again. Nothing makes sense. Maybe he’s still feverish, losing his words, his memory, unaware it’s even happening. Maybe he’s still in the grip of the sickness and dreaming all of this up, babbling in his frantic sleep. Warning Charles that it was a trap, that Dutch is in danger, even days after getting back.

His attention drifts to Dutch’s tent in front of him. The man himself is not obvious at first, and Arthur wonders if perhaps he’s avoiding him too, not knowing how to act in his presence or ask how he’s feeling. Unsure how to conduct any kind of conversation after their last activity together went so badly wrong.

It was Dutch Colm wanted.

Arthur’s not sure he’s ever been used as bait before. It’s not a positive feeling.

Maybe Dutch feels guilty?

He frowns to himself, picking at a dent in the wood of the table with his thumbnail - one of the few that isn’t still tipped with black or broken completely. It’s not Dutch’s fault. Thankfully, Arthur managed to get out before Dutch arrived to help him, before he stepped unknowingly into Colm’s trap. And then...Charles? Charles was there at some point.

It’s mostly a blur. Foggy and intangible, fact indistinguishable from the fantasies conjured up by his reeling mind, trying desperately to fill in the blanks in its memory. He remembers the shack, the O’Driscolls there with his journal, slaughtering them all. Then sand, and Magpie’s soft nose, her hot breath. Falling endlessly, hitting the ground, shoulder jarred and screeching. New pain, building on the old. Strong arms then, a gentle hand on his cheek, and Charles’ voice somewhere far off, drifting through the agony and the sickness. _“I’ve got you.”_

Had he imagined it? Just another fever dream?

In the midst of his struggling thoughts, still only coming to him as if forced through a mangle in the process, Dutch appears from inside his tent, sparkling as the sun glances off his buttoned waistcoat, the silver watch chains bowed from each pocket like miniature metal smiles. Arthur waves with just his fingers raised from the table, feeling rude not to, and Dutch is then unable to ignore him, making his way over with all the eagerness of a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

How long has it been since they spoke? Has Dutch asked after him? Has he been worried?

“Dutch,” Arthur says, having to clear his throat before his voice will sound.

“Good afternoon, Arthur!” Dutch answers, loud and brash as always, and gestures widely at him, standing opposite the table. “Good to see you up and about again.”

“Ha…”

Arthur huffs, and scratches his bearded chin, feeling Dutch’s eyes on him, on his ugly red-rimmed eyes, on the split across his forehead. It’s scabbed now, turning towards a blunt scar, but there’s still discolouration above his eyebrow from the extent of the bruising, not completely hidden by his hair. “Few more battle scars,” he says, sheepish.

Again, he feels naked. He’d managed to put jeans on again with Charles’ help, and only has his union suit by way of a proper shirt, which isn’t odd considering the warm weather, yet he can’t help but long to retreat back inside, wrap himself up beneath his blanket and stop being _seen_. Looked at. His sternum and collarbones are partly visible from the few undone buttons, but the dressing on his shoulder takes up so much space, it’s not like his chest is bare or even close, blotted as it is by the remaining tinge of bruises, colliding into one another in splashes of faded colour. They’re mostly gone now, but the few stubborn dregs are turning yellow, giving his skin a sallow stain. Whether it’s an improvement on the purple and black of before, he can’t decide.

Still, the feeling nags at him. He doesn’t hold Dutch’s gaze for more than a few moments.

“I, uh-” Dutch gestures again, brandishing one hand as if conjuring something to say from the air, just like Trelawny does colourful handkerchiefs or magic birds. His discomfort is obvious, and uncharacteristic, usually so adept at spinning golden tales from straw, able to talk enough for a dozen men at least. “Bill’s been sniffing about in Rhodes with them Gray boys, while you’ve been...gone. Nothing’s come up yet, but I’ll let you know.”

“Sure,” Arthur says.

“And, son…”

His voice drops, moustache turning down with the corners of his mouth like butter sliding off a warm knife, brows creased together. The watch chains looped between his pockets glint in the sunlight. “I am...deeply sorry. I feel like a fool.”

With another huff, Arthur shrugs his good shoulder. It makes the other one hurt all the same. “I’m alive.”

“Yeah, well… It seemed like a good opportunity. Micah and I both feel like idiots.”

“What… What happened to you two?”

“Well, the whole thing, it was-” Dutch twirls his wrist, grasping for words, face crumpled in confusion. “It was odd. We kept waitin’ for them to jump us, then they all left, so we figured we’d meet you on the trail back… But you never showed up.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and he doesn’t even try to hide the grim tone in his voice, too exhausted to bother. “Was gettin’ the special guest treatment from Colm. Bait to lure you in.”

It hangs between them for a moment, loud and ugly, a pregnant pause, heavy like a bloated corpse. Then Dutch nods, solemn, leaving his head downturned. “I know,” he says, and then quieter, “I know. I cannot believe what an idiot I was and...that happened.”

His mouth tightens, one thin line underscoring his moustache, with an edge in his voice like a blade. “I guess, forgiveness… There’s some folks that don’t deserve it.”

Arthur frowns again as he studies the dent in the table, a chip large enough to fit his thumbnail within. He picks at it. 

His own feelings don’t really include anger, and so it’s a mild surprise to him to find out Dutch’s do. In all the days since he’d first woken up, he hasn’t dedicated much time to feeling anything towards Colm, except outside the fear and revulsion of his nightmares. There’s no energy in him to actively feel hate, or a need for revenge. Not even anger that it happened. From a tactical point of view, Colm’s plan was pretty ingenious. But perhaps it’s easier for Dutch to channel whatever he’s feeling into anger. Something with direction. 

A thought poses itself. One he’s toyed with before, but never put any words to.

“You…”

It was a good plan; the only thing that didn’t seem to go accordingly was Dutch himself. And he’s certain he remembers they had planned to meet on the road afterwards, no matter what happened. Did Dutch wait for him? Did they search the area? Surely Dutch knew Arthur never would have voluntarily missed a planned meet-up after something so important.

How long before they decided to leave without him?

Arthur picks the table, too hard, and hurts himself, frowning as he withdraws his thumb, the nail flooding back to its usual colour in an instant. He looks up, brows caught in the middle like a puckered seam, helplessness flitting around his face as a sparrow between branches. “You _was_ comin’ for me…” he says, small, meagre, like he’s not entirely sure he wants the answer at all. “Right, Dutch?”

The expression on Dutch’s face is unreadable. For a moment, he simply looks back at Arthur, the noonday sun slick in his greased-back hair. His lips part and then shut, and he answers in a flurry of forward momentum, to make up for the pause.

“Of _course_ , son,” he says, and his eyes become imploring as he steps closer to the table, one hand outstretched to touch Arthur’s right shoulder. He squeezes. “Of course.”

With a half-smile, humourless as a concrete block, Arthur nods, and has to resist the urge to shrug away from Dutch’s unwarranted touch, unsure he enjoys feeling fingers squeezing at his clavicle, even if it is the one without the hole beneath it. His gaze stutters and falls back to studying the table, thumb still against the crooked dent, but no comfort is found, in Dutch’s words or in the burls and knots of wood.

Hesitating for a moment more, Dutch steps back, clapping his hands together. “Keep up the recovery,” he says, hastily jovial, and bows out of the conversation as easily as a performer at the final curtain, raising his voice to call out as he heads back towards his tent, apparently eager to get away. “We need you fit and workin’, Arthur! Makin’ money!”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, though Dutch is already out of earshot. “I’m tryin’.”

Well, Charles is. Charles is all that seems to be holding him together of late.

Curious, Arthur looks over to the chuckwagon, and finds Charles’ figure crouched by the pot hanger, stirring something over the fire. He brushes some loose hair back from his forehead as Arthur watches, wiping away sweat with his shirt sleeve.

Everything Charles has done since Arthur returned home has been for him. And although Arthur knows Charles would chide him for thinking it, in that gentle and ever understanding way of his, he can’t help but feel unworthy of his care. His attention. Even Dutch seems wary of him, as if he’s brought some unknown disease back into camp, some bad smell, and the others are simply avoiding the risk of infection by averting their eyes, shutting their mouths when they notice him looking in their direction.

Not Charles, though. What makes him special, that Charles would expend so much effort on him? Would put up with so much? Things any other man would’ve run at the mere suggestion of. Arthur has snapped at him, cursed at him, grabbed him in the midst of nightmares, cried, bled, _vomited_ on him- Yet still Charles sleeps beside him, cleans up after him, undertakes the most demeaning and unsavoury of tasks without a word of protest.

Maybe he feels guilty too.

Perhaps, like Dutch, it’s easier to redirect discomfort into something proactive. In Dutch’s case, his uncertainty with how to interact with him seems to be channelled into anger. In Charles’, maybe it’s care. Making up for some misplaced guilt by ensuring he’s looked after, fed and watered.

Arthur looks away again. He’s not helping himself.

The fresh air prickles, and he longs for the still, dim light of his wagon-tent, privacy he’s grown to depend on. Being away from that safe haven is making his mind reel, conjuring doubt and anxiety like a persistent swarm of insects, buzzing in his head, pinching his skin. He wants Charles. Wants and yet doesn’t feel worthy of having. Charles’ easy companionship, his kind acceptance. With him, he feels human. A man. Not a cloth doll stitched together from scraps, with mismatched buttons for eyes and a permanent woolly smile, stuck in place no matter the emotions inside.

Charles makes him feel like himself. Whoever that is. He’s even less sure than usual.

From behind him, there’s a snorting noise from one of the horses, the various mares milling about their section of the clearing, grazing as a herd. Gingerly, he tries to twist around, and abandons the attempt a split second later, muscles pulled sharp across his side. Instead, he turns his entire body as one, and sits sideways on his chair to watch the horses, finding comfort in their soft noises, their conversations and body language, how round some bellies have become with the sweet summer grass, tails flicking flies.

Unlike the humans of the Point, they don’t seem to hide as he looks at them.

It’s been so long since he saw Magpie. Since the night he made it back. And even then, he doesn’t remember most of it. Charles had said she’s suffering too, as he is.

Looking over the group, he can’t see her immediately, and it fills him with a vague sense of unease, like a child who has lost sight of his mother in a crowded place, certain she’s still somewhere close yet unable to find her to make sure, mind already filling with the slosh and slip of fear, of cold abandonment.

He doesn’t spend much time debating. Slow and stilted, like he’s a man twice his age, he judders to his feet, right hand leaning heavily on the table to bear the weight his torso can’t. It takes a second to catch his breath, and then he starts to walk, legs stiff beneath him, his chest held tight and hunched, bowed in pain.

From a distance it looks like he’s trying to jog through a swamp, every movement lagging and sluggish, as if weighed down in the stagnant water. Unsteady, he wades through the cluster of hitching posts, pausing at one to breathe for a few more moments before continuing, one leaden step at a time, ankles like crunching glass. It’s like trying to run in a dream - somehow disconnected, unreal, like the world is a strip of images being viewed through a zoescope, flickering into motion slightly too slowly to be seamless.

Lenny’s mustang mare Maggie lifts her head to him, and stately Old Belle snorts as he carefully moves between them, palms out for balance and courtesy both, brushing gently against their sides so as not to startle them. There are the wagon horses, shared saddlers, Uncle’s pretty sabino Nell II, quiet Branwen, and as he manages to move through the group, beautiful noble Taima, shifting amiably close to him, her dark head raised in greeting, burring as he approaches, glad to see him after so long.

She guards the rear of the herd, and he spends a moment by her side, stroking her neck, catching his breath, before he finally spots Magpie, further past the scouts’ campfire and half-hidden by a tree, her distinctive coat instantly recognisable. Even from a distance, her body language isn’t positive. Her hind cannon bones are wrapped to her fetlocks, and though she appears to be grazing, it’s rare that a horse enjoys being so far from its herd, especially Magpie, who has always seemed more confident in a group.

Head up and ears pricked, Taima whinnies, a half-hearted call. Only a gelding from the opposite side of camp answers, and Taima simply drops her head back to the grass, tail flicking over her flanks to swat flies. Arthur pats her shoulder, frowning up at the distant tree.

A shock of much redder hair than Magpie’s catches his attention then, over to his left.

Sean is marching past the scouts’ fire with such ferocity that his boots are kicking up dust with every footfall, a bottle brandished in his hand. “Hey!” he shouts, stalking towards Magpie’s tree, thin shoulders drawn up around his chin, hackles raised like a baying hound. “Hey, you! Come here!”

Always reminding Arthur somehow of a mouse, twitchy and small and vaguely grey in appearance, Kieran appears from Magpie’s flank, having been standing somewhere behind the well-placed tree, just out of sight amongst the thick foliage. He skips out from its shade, shielding his eyes as he looks for the source of the call that’s disturbed her.

Managing a couple more yards of walking, Arthur heads the short distance to the scouts’ campfire, and sits a moment as Sean stalks further on, grateful for another chair. He watches the interaction.

“Yeah, you!” Sean snaps, loud with the disinhibition of drink, waving his bottle as if it’s a weapon. In his hand, it could well be. “Get over _here_ , O’Driscoll.”

Looking jerkily about the clearing, as if hoping Sean’s talking to someone else, or else looking for a convenient place to hide, Keiran takes a few more timid steps from the safety of the tree, smack in Sean’s firing line like a deer caught in a train’s headlight, transfixed and still even as danger hurtles towards him.

As Sean marches to meet him, Kieran draws himself up with the last of his confidence, caught between both fight and flight, lingering in the no man's land between the scouts’ fire and the edge of the campsite. Buffalograss and bluestem brush as high as his knees, wispy and dry. “Y-You know,” he starts, like every word is an effort. He stands as tall as he can, which sadly isn’t very. “I ain’t no O’Driscoll.”

“I know what y’are, _O’Driscoll_ ,” Sean snaps, coming to a halt touching distance from Keiran’s chest, swaggering with heady bravado. He throws out his arms, gestures overly large and jerking, quick in boastful anger. “And I know it was O’Driscolls what damn near killed Arthur t’other week. What’s your explanation for that, hm? I seen you, lurkin’ about his horse ever since.”

“You-” 

Staring at him, Kieran’s face drops in quick dismay, like he’s just swallowed ice. “You think I- _No!_ I proved myself, I- I saved his life! I ain’t had nothin’ to do with ‘em since ridin’ with you boys-”

“All you proved is how quick you turn on your friends, ya weaselly little maggot. Y’don’t think it’s a mite _odd_ Arthur gets licked by O’Driscolls while we got an O’Driscoll ridin’ wit’ us?”

Desperate, Kieran’s voice wobbles. “I _told_ you, I ain’t-”

Sean headbutts him.

There’s a noise like someone has trodden on a cat. With a wet crunch, Kieran crumples over backwards, hands flying to his bleeding nose, rolling and scrambling backwards, kicking away from Sean in the grass.

“Hey!” Arthur yells. At once, he’s on his feet again, marching towards the pair despite how stars blink around his eyes from how quickly he gets up.

Leering, Sean takes a sip from his bottle, and readjusts his hat with his free hand, watching Kieran writhe in front of him with a sadistic glee, trying to hold his nose and scurry through the long grass at once, blood spattered on his shirt. “Our old neighbour back in Donegal was called O’Driscoll,” Sean says, shoulders held high and solid. A terrier who’s spotted a rat, wound so tightly in his anger his whole tiny body vibrates. “And we couldn’t stand him neither.”

Arthur reaches them, trying vaguely to disguise how hard he’s breathing. “What in- In _Hell_ you think you’re d-doin’?” he demands, immediately shoving at Sean’s shoulder to turn him as he crashes into his space, meeting him eye-to-eye. They square up to each other, chest against chest, Arthur having the size advantage but also clearly looking like he’s about to faint, face a sickly shade of grey beneath his beard.

“What, you want some, big man?” Sean jeers, inches from him. His nostrils flare.

Posturing, Arthur tips his chin up, forcing every screaming muscle of his torso to hold firm for a moment longer, drawing himself up tall past the fractured ribs, the bruised soft tissue. They snarl like wild dogs, circling, ready to snap.

“Don’t annoy me, boy,” he growls, nose scrunched in distaste, voice tight with pain and anger both. The smell of drink is unmistakable. Sean’s drunk. “The kid ain’t responsible for nothin’. Use your thick head for _once_.”

“You an O’Driscoll lover now, old timer? Colm really buttered you up _good_ -”

“Get outta my sight, _right now_ ,” Arthur rasps, a dangerous whisper, flexing the fingers of his right hand. His lips curls. “‘Fore I shut your mouth permanently.”

It takes a moment, loaded with nothing but Kieran’s pained breathing, but Sean eventually backs down, retreating a step from Arthur’s bristling anger, chuckling a venomous laugh. As if it was all one big joke, as if Arthur has ruined his good-natured fun.

Sneering as he takes one last swig from his bottle, he throws it to the ground next to Kieran, and spits for good measure, before stalking past the both of them, back towards the rest of the camp.

“Do some work and quit makin’ an ass of y’self!” Arthur yells after him, voice grating, the last drop of energy squeezed from his aching chest.

Sean’s raised middle fingers are his only reply.

Arthur watches him go before he lets go of his tension, sinking in on himself with a taut and heavy sigh. He shudders, muscles threatening to give out entirely, pitching him on his sore ankles, breath coming fast. Like a cardboard box that’s been left out in the rain, and now has all the structural integrity of blancmange.

It takes a moment to find his balance, close to joining Keiran on the ground, but he manages, shaking his head as he hefts himself over to him, offering him his good hand. With a mumbled thanks, Kieran takes it, and gets sheepishly to his feet, wiping uselessly at his nose with his hand. “I...ain’t got a- ‘Kerchief or nothin’, sorry,” Arthur says absently, fishing through his jeans pockets as he pants.

“S’fine,” Kieran breathes, his own voice wobbling equally. “Thanks.”

He pulls his shirt sleeve down over his hand, and gently mops up his nose, pressing it gingerly side to side while Arthur tries to catch his breath, hunched slightly over his own knees. His sides are throbbing, a sharp and deep exertion like blades are lodged between his ribs. 

“I- Mister Morgan, sir,” Kieran says, stammering with pain or desperation or shock, or all of the above, Arthur can’t tell. “I-I didn’t have _nothin’_ to do with what happened, I swear, I ain’t lying- What happened with...with Colm, I only heard secondhand from Mister Smith, a-and he didn’t wanna h-have me intrude on your privacy of course, but I-I’m _so_ sorry, if I could’ve-”

“Stop,” Arthur hisses. “Stop talkin’. Please.”

“O-Oh...sure, sorry.”

Gesturing with a weak wave, placating, Arthur stumbles the short distance back over to the campfire, and sits in the same chair, wiping his sopping brow. He stares at the space between his boots, eyes shut, swaying very slightly.

After a few moments, Kieran joins him, and lingers at the edge of the cleared ground as if waiting for permission, dabbing his upper lip with his sleeve, sniffling every other breath.

“I know you ain’t lying,” Arthur says, when he can find air enough to speak. Voice quiet with redoubled exhaustion, he leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. Pulls a hand through his dirty hair, damp with sweat. “Sean’s… Ain’t always a fun drunk. Don’t mind him.”

“I’m… I’m used to it, sir, to be honest,” Kieran replies, round face creased in honesty, shrugging one shoulder.

It makes Arthur look up at him, brows pulled together. He’s still not sure he’d trust the kid much further than he could throw him, but he’s obviously no criminal mastermind. And he sincerely doubts he’s had any contact with Colm’s boys since they dragged him into Colter. Literally. Does Sean think he’s sending telegrams to Colm when they’re not looking? Maybe smoke signals?

Kieran’s harmless. By all accounts, he didn’t get on well with Colm’s boys - they couldn’t have abducted a meeker O’Driscoll - he had simply drifted into their ranks with nowhere else to go, as most of Dutch’s own collection of outcasts and oddities had, in fact. As Arthur had himself. He could have easily fallen in with another gang at Kieran’s age, alone and wandering, only thinking of where his next meal could be stolen from. It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t for any of them.

Yet even though he tries to keep out of the way, and helps out as much as he can - more than some much longer term members do - Kieran is still treated like an enemy, like he’s unclean and unwanted, even by Arthur himself. All for the sake of some idiotic feud he never wanted any part in. That none of them ever wanted a part in.

After everything that’s happened, Arthur understands why Colm keeps his gang at a distance. If everyone around you is expendable, there’s no one you would risk your life to keep. It keeps Colm safe. Cut-off from others, there aren’t any weaknesses to exploit in order to hurt him. He wouldn’t sacrifice himself for any of his boys.

Dutch is...different. Dutch is supposed to be different. Supposed to care for all of them. Sure, they’d kept Kieran tied to a tree for a few weeks, pissing where he stood, a scrap of newspaper to wipe his ass, threatened with gelding tongs every so often, but… It’s different.

Isn’t it?

If the tables were turned, and Dutch had taken one of the O’Driscoll boys hostage, would he have treated him as they’d treated Arthur? Kept him imprisoned, starved and beaten him? Watched him die? Just because of who he rides with?

Isn’t that essentially what they did to Kieran?

He was starving. Humiliated. Terrified, but- It wasn’t torture. Was it? They wouldn’t have _tortured_ him. Even if they could have got to Colm through him. Right?

Arthur frowns, and looks away from Kieran, watching the low flames crackle in front of him, lapping at the blackened kindling. His mind is running away again, swirling with doubt as a bayou creek with mud. Maybe they really did addle his brain as well as his body. Things don’t seem to make as much sense as they did before.

“I…” Clearing his throat, Arthur rubs at his itching beard, having forgotten why he came over to the scouts’ fire in the first place. Where’s Charles got to? “We...give you a hard time, kid, I know, but… Sean got no call to act like that. If- If it goes too far- I, uh-”

How he longs for his dingy tent. The candlelight and the smell of ointment and Charles. Charles’ hands, Charles’ eyes, Charles’ ability to always know what to say.

“You… You’re one of us now, so… If it goes too far, you, uh… You l-lemme know. Alright?”

“Sure…” Kieran says, looking just as nonplussed as Arthur. He nods. “Sure, thanks, uh- Mister-”

“Arthur,” Arthur says, sighing deep. “Arthur’s fine.”

For a few moments, neither of them move, silently wondering how to navigate the odd interaction. Kieran tries to flatten his sleeve, pulled out of shape from where he’s used it as a handkerchief, blotted with spots of blood, and promptly gives up when it proves futile, rocking absently on his toes. He doesn’t ogle his bruises, or stare at what a state he is, Arthur notices. Polite kid.

“Oh,” he says eventually, and Arthur looks up at him again. “Your, uh- Your Magpie. I was just checkin’ on her- I- She only r-really lets me and Mister- And Charles get close, but…we been tryin’ to take care of her like...normal. If you wanna see her- ”

Eyes up and full of hope, like a bulb has been switched on behind them, Arthur looks over to the tree where Magpie’s grazing, suddenly remembering. She’s only a dozen yards away, and he wants nothing but to go to her, to sit up on her back and just let her run, riding wherever the road takes them. To feel her gallop beneath him again, her mane in his hand, the wind on his face, free from the unease plaguing him here, the awkward conversations, the glances, the questions-

He can’t. She can’t.

That’s the worst feeling of all of it. Feeling trapped.

Arthur gets to his feet again. It hurts, all of him hurts, but it doesn’t matter. They walk together over towards the tree, and Kieran stays blessedly quiet until Arthur speaks, knowing his input is neither wanted or needed.

“Is she...okay?”

“I...I’m not sure, to be honest. I think...she went through a lot. Just like you did, of course- I-”

Kieran sighs, and stops a short distance away from the lone mare by the tree, letting Arthur approach her alone. “I seen horses spooked before, and spooked real bad, but…”

Eyeing the pair of them, Magpie snorts, warily swishing her tail. “Thanks, kid,” Arthur mumbles, and Kieran nods, watching for a moment before excusing himself, leaving them be to go and change his bloody shirt.

Only then does Magpie lift her head, ears flicking. Her eyes - bright ice blue and not red, not even close to red - watch Arthur like they might a distant predator, wary, calculating constantly. Observing. Listening.

Another step, and she immediately bolts upright, distress loud in her nostrils as she backs off, hooves tamping out a disjointed rhythm in the grass, erupting backwards in her fear.

“Hey, hey…” Arthur shows her his palms, trying to keep hold of his own plummeting confidence. Snorting, she dances to one side, ready to turn and run, to kick, to duck her head and buck, anything to get away. “Easy, darlin’,” he says, quiet, voice wavering despite how he tries to keep it controlled. He stands still. Daren’t breathe. His thighs are shaking. “It’s just me, sweetheart. Just me. You know me.”

Magpie eyes him, and takes a few steps further away, skittering in agitation, retreating towards the natural ditch around the perimeter of the camp, presumably a creek at one point in time. Her right hind leg is clearly lame, struggling to bear weight, and there’s a faded pink patch over her shoulder where her coat was caked in blood, dried in long stripes down to her fetlocks. Arthur’s blood. Painting her red. No one has managed to get close enough to wash it out completely. With the heat and the dust, it has baked into her skin.

“I miss you,” Arthur whispers, and smiles immediately out of some warped reflex, instinctively replacing the surge of sadness with a feeble attempt at showing humour, like slapping thin paint over a cracked wall and hoping no one will notice the ugliness beneath the surface. As if Magpie could tell. Or care.

He doesn’t follow her, watching her snort and worry, head high and tense, eyes wide. Her tail flicks, ears back. “They made a mess of me too. But we’re gonna fix it, okay? It’ll be okay. No one’s gonna hurt you again, I promise. I- I should’ve-”

The wave peaks and Arthur drops his head, screwing his eyes shut. His hair falls over his forehead, lank with grease. For a long moment, he just stands on his trembling legs, the long grass brushing at his boots, and wants nothing but to cry.

She’s hurt. She’s hurt and it’s his fault.

He put her in the situation in the first place, he couldn’t get away quick enough to prevent anything happening to her, and now he can’t even comfort her. His beautiful, brave mare, the first he’d loved since losing Boadicea, and she’s broken just like he is. But it’s his fault.

He shakes his head, and bites his bottom lip to stop it quivering, able to hear Magpie’s anxious snorts, her stamping hooves, tangled up in her fear. Of him. Fear of him. Of the world around her. Of whatever she witnessed and experienced at the O’Driscolls’ hands, because Arthur couldn’t keep her safe.

Voice barely sounding, he whispers to the uncaring afternoon, and hopes when he opens his eyes, he’ll wake up before any of it happened. Before they even set out that morning. Before he tacked her up and rode her into the hands of men who harmed her. 

Take his freedom, take his whole arm, take his life; he would gladly give everything he had to keep her safe. 

“I’m so sorry, Mags.”

Why did they have to take her from him too?

He doesn’t wake up. A warbler cries from the nearby woods, and insects buzz in the warm air, a disinterested audience to the silent clearing, grass stems swaying silently. His tears well up, and he rubs at his sore eyes with the back of his hand, ashamed. Ashamed of all of it.

Magpie flicks her tail, and as the minutes tick on in silence, she gradually lowers her head, ears relaxing back towards him. One eye remains trained on him, head turned to the side to see him clearly, but she doesn’t move away when Arthur tries again to move forward, legs stiff and shaking, approaching her as slow as he can. He has to try. For her sake.

“You’re okay,” he says, soft, and shows her his empty palms. His legs threaten to buckle with every step, but he’s determined to keep moving, hesitating whenever she tenses, and only moving again once she relaxes down, ears coming forward, muscles letting go of their tension. It’s a slow dance, one step every few minutes, a halting, unsteady process, but there’s nothing else he can think to do, sure only that he must convince her of his sincerity, start to rebuild her trust, if only a tiny piece at a time. “It’s just me. Bit uglier than you remember, but it’s still me. I think.”

After what feels like an age, Arthur reaches her, and offers her his palm to sniff. She does so, worrying his hand with her lips, whiskers tickling, and relaxes almost instantly, nudging her nose into his touch with gentle, miraculous familiarity, bright sun breaking through a cloying fog. She knows him.

“There’s my girl,” Arthur murmurs, breathy with the effort and the relief of her small gesture of trust, and slowly strokes her pink nose, moving closer into her space once she allows it. “I missed you too, sweetheart.”

His left hand still held uselessly by his side, Arthur leans into her shoulder, and immediately she tucks her head over his back, snuffling at his jeans, looking for treats in his back pocket. Habit. He smiles, weak and watery into her crest, and rests his head on her withers, his good hand wrapping around her in a one-armed hug. “I missed you,” he whispers again, and just breathes into her coat for as long as he can stand, black mane rubbing at his stubbled cheek.

It’s a while before he’s disturbed. Charles stops a short distance away, and just watches for a moment, not wanting to intrude. Then Magpie lifts her head, and her distraction catches Arthur’s attention, looking back to see him there, carrying a plate and bowl of food, plus a cup of coffee, all balanced between his two hands, smiling at Arthur by way of greeting.

“Hey,” Arthur says softly, and lets Magpie go with one last rub of her nose, stumbling on his numb feet to help Charles with the food. His eyes are ringed with pink, and he sniffs as he walks with Charles, though he tries to hide it all the same, smiling just a little too falsely to make up for it.

“Hey,” Charles replies, just as gently, helping Arthur sit down once he has a free hand, settling him against the tree near where Magpie goes back to grazing, calmer than before, and then sitting beside him in the grass, arm still around his back. “You good?”

“Mm. Tired.”

With a sigh, Arthur shifts his weight, and leans on Charles’ shoulder, shutting his eyes as he nuzzles into his shirt. His legs are stretched out in front of him, weak and aching, and again he’s eager for his bed, to strip off his jeans and let his muscles relax. Preferably with Charles by his side.

“I’m not surprised. You should’ve called, I could have helped if you wanted to walk this far.”

“Sorry. Wasn’t planned.”

He sighs again, and takes a sip of the coffee. Black and strong, just as he likes it. “Wanted to see Mags.”

With a slight frown, Charles looks up at where Magpie lingers near to them, away from the other mares. In the space of those few days, her confidence seems to have shattered, and her place in the herd is uncertain, anxious of being close to the others, despite her knowing them well. Even Taima, her closest friend, seems unable to calm her completely, tormented by learnt experience, by ghosts.

Just as Arthur is.

“She’ll be okay,” Charles says, and buries his nose in Arthur’s hair where his head is propped on his shoulder, not caring that it desperately needs washing, strands clinging together with grease. His breath is warm. “She’s brave. It’ll take time, but she’ll be okay.”

“She’s got you,” Arthur says quietly, heavy with exhaustion. “We got you to look after us.”

A soft huff of breath, and Charles kisses Arthur’s head, burying his small smile in his hair. “You’re stuck with me.”

Arthur eats slowly, resting on Charles, letting the exertion catch up with him. Together they watch the afternoon pass by, and the unease he’d felt before is all but lost when it’s just the two of them. Dutch’s unconvincing words are forgotten, Magpie’s trauma, the pain, the embarrassment, Sean’s goading, Kieran’s learned helplessness, like a dog that’s been kicked too many times to bother getting back up. The worries of his world seem to melt away, soothed by Charles’ arm around him, rubbing gently at his back, the kisses he presses to his head, and the jokes they share. As if the world isn’t so cruel, when it’s just them sitting side by side.

 

As usual, circumstance decides to prove how spectacularly wrong they are.

“Mister Morgan, it is _good_ to see you up and about after so long.”

There’s a noise like someone has thrown a pile of laundry from an upstairs window, and one of the canvas sheets surrounding Arthur’s wagon falls heavily to the ground, bundled quickly into Miss Grimshaw’s arms and folded into loose halves.

“And you, Miss,” Arthur says, tone hesitant as they approach the site of her dismantling operation, having descended on the wagon like a folklore monster on village livestock, tearing down the awnings as if they’ve personally offended her. Arthur shares a glance with Charles by his side, laden with unspoken worry.

Unable to do much but watch, they linger a few yards from the tent, and Charles swallows the sudden stop in his throat, taking Arthur’s hand for just long enough to squeeze it and offer some tiny gesture of comfort.

“You’re looking much better,” Susan continues, teetering on the toes of her short boots as she reaches up for the next sheet, pulling it down to pile in the grass with a cushioned _thunk_. She turns to them for a second, levelling a terse stare at Arthur. “We were worried.”

“Doesn’t look it,” Charles mutters, as soon as Susan’s back is turned, only loud enough for Arthur’s ears.

He doesn’t manage a laugh. “I’m…” The shaking in his legs had only stopped after an hour or so, and he’ll be feeling the pain for days after so much activity. Might not even get out of bed again for the next few, and that would’ve been fine if- If he’d had a safe space to do so. A modicum of privacy within such public living.

That was why the canvas had been repurposed in the first place. Has it truly been so long that he needs to move on already? That things need to go back to how they were? He barely knows whether they’ll ever be how they were, can barely walk, barely dress himself-

“I’m fine,” Arthur says, quiet, tight in his throat, like the anxiety he’s feeling has hands and they’re fastened around his neck, snatching up his voice, his air, drowning his words in the music of another humid afternoon; the rustling of the oak leaves, ferns and tangled greenbriar, the wash of water on the lake shore, the humble songs of warblers and vireos, butterflies sunning their wings on patches of dry ground. It would be peaceful, if Arthur could hear it.

“I sure am glad of that!” Miss Grimshaw chirps, folding the next awning and setting it on the growing pile of them, working her way around the wagon with clinical efficiency. All the bedside manner of an army surgeon who’s amputated far too many gangrenous limbs with nothing but a blunt bonesaw to have an ounce of softness left, cannonballs careening past the medical tent, churning through the dirt like it’s butter. “That surely means you’ll be back to work in no time.”

“Sure…”

“You know, things have been slipping in your absence, Mister Morgan.”

“Oh.”

“No one gone out to hunt, no food comin’ in, those girls ain’t completing chores, too busy...boilin’ water and scrubbin’ the gussets o’ your unmentionables-”

“That was their choice,” Charles says, interjecting.

Susan snaps up to look at him, the skirts of her dress whipped around her. Scowls from behind her nose, like a giant bird with an even bigger beak. “I was happy doing it alone. Miss Jones insisted I let her and Miss Jackson help out so I could concentrate on other things.”

For a moment, Miss Grimshaw simply stares at Charles, as if deciding whether or not to argue, whether to dive and pluck the brave mouse up in her talons, and eat him on the wing, or wait a while longer for bigger prey. Silent, Arthur wilts by Charles’ side, hoping the earth beneath his feet might be kind enough to swallow him. Before he falls over in his own exhaustion.

“‘Other things’, other things! That’s just the problem, Mister Smith! Everyone in this damn camp is focused on _other things_! And not one _necessary_ thing is gettin’ done!”

She rounds on the remains of the tent and jerks the next shade down, face pinched up like a clenched fist, eyes sharp and hard as shards of flint. Her hair is falling out of its pompadour, steely wisps sticking out around her face at all angles, like raffia before it’s washed, coarse and easily frayed. It makes her look even more unapproachable, a sheared wire sparking with electric current.

“I try my best to keep this place runnin’ for you boys, I really do,” Susan continues, grumbling to herself as she works. “But money ain’t comin’ in, wagons ain’t restocked, Pearson’s caterwauling about food and makin’ an awful fuss, horses ain’t groomed, not one of you is takin’ guard duty, outhouse gotta be redug, fires need buildin’ up-”

Grunting with effort as she piles the next sheet, she flaps her hands at the pair of them, voice bordering on shrill. “You think this is easy? Keepin’ you all fed and presentable? It ain’t easy! I try my best, but how can I win when the pantry’s gettin’ low, when the purse ain’t full enough to buy a sack of maize or a bale of hay-”

At some point, Charles stops listening. Stands a hair closer to Arthur. Indignance swirls in him, a rising heat.

Arthur could well have died; not even a month ago. And Charles suspects he is far more damaged than even he knows, far beyond the physical fractures, the bruises, the cuts, the burns. A much uglier, deeper hurt lurks in his mind, still unable to remember much of what happened during his imprisonment, his brain forcibly shutting out any attempt to process the ordeal except in nightmares. He needs the privacy, needs the respite, time to rebuild. It’s obvious he’s not comfortable outside yet; he needs time to repair his shattered confidence, find out how to exist after such a horrific experience.

It’s the same that was afforded to John after his brush with fanged death in the mountains. He rested for weeks; he needed to. Why is Arthur denied the same time he needs to recover? Why is Arthur pushed so much harder than the others? Why is his mental and physical well-being important only as an asset to the wider camp? And why does the camp start to fall apart when Arthur takes time for himself? There are a dozen grown men among them, perfectly capable of physical effort, and what with the Gray/Braithwaite feud having turned conspicuously silent for the past few weeks, it’s not like any of them are busy with more pressing things. When was the last time Dutch hauled hay, or dug a new outhouse pit? Can John not take up his rifle to hunt? Can Javier not chop some firewood, Sean help Kieran with the horses?

He can hear conversation from the other side of camp, voices raised in games of cards and dice. Having distractions is as important as anything, but if the situation is truly that dire - when was the last time any of them took on half the responsibility Arthur puts on his own shoulders? Willingly, with never a word of complaint.

Jaw clenched, Charles exhales as slow as he can, and brushes the cold fingers of Arthur’s left hand with his, stirring him from the blank helplessness that’s come over him as he watches Miss Grimshaw dismantle his sanctuary, tear down the walls that have kept him safe since the day he got back.

He’s hurt. And will be for a long time. No matter how long it takes, no matter who he has to piss off, Charles is desperate to ensure he still has somewhere safe to feel like himself again.

Sluggish, Arthur looks up at him, at Charles’ expression, grim as a block of granite, studying him for a moment before his attention is called back by Susan’s monologue, complaining loudly from the wagon. His injured ankles are faltering again, and he sways slightly in place, boots feeling too heavy on his feet, too clumsy.

“It will do you no good to waste away in the dark, Mister Morgan!” Susan snaps, reaching up for the final sheet, the last brick in the foundation. She tugs it forcefully down, and the canvas billows from the roof of the wagon to the grass below, collapsing with a soft thud. “You need to get up and out! Do your duty for Dutch! And seein’ as you’re content to mill about doin’ absolutely nothing for an entire afternoon - not even grooming yourself, might I add - perhaps it’s high time you did.”

If possible, Charles seems to bristle even more, like every hair has stood on end at once, run through with jolting indignation. It crackles in the air around him, and Arthur wants nothing but to be held in his arms, be swallowed by his ferocity and know nothing else, drown in his warmth, the clinging scent of herbal ointment on his shirt. Instead, Charles is kept forcibly mute, knowing he can’t speak any of the words he wants to, stood tall and unblinking against the flurry of Miss Grimshaw’s furious bustling, like a sea stack off a stormy coast, a bastion of stoic rock against the water and the wind.

Susan isn’t an uncaring woman, but in Charles’ eyes in that moment, she may as well be one of Arthur’s captors, stringing him back up by his ankles and beating him black and blue. Her concern is for the camp, for every one of them. He knows that, rationally, but rationality feels far away when he can visibly see Arthur start to wobble on his aching legs, slump within himself and sink slightly behind Charles, a fearful melancholy running through his blood like the infection had, blotting out the light in his eyes.

Rationality also tells him that this was inevitable. As Arthur recovers, he will rely on Charles less. Will need him less. There was always going to come a time when the shades would come down. There will soon come a time when Arthur asks for his own bed back, when he again requires his own space, when he no longer needs help or support for most of the day and night.

But...not yet. Not now. Not when they had only just begun sharing a bed, when he had only just achieved those first steps outside, only just managed to recover enough fine motor skills to successfully button his jeans by himself.

Not until that time, not a day sooner, when Arthur is fit and able enough, secure enough in his own mind, confident enough to be alone, will he be willing to simply...let him get on with it, let him struggle needlessly. Not when he can offer his help, his time, his friendship. The simplest of gifts anyone can give, and ones he would give to Arthur a hundred times over.

Not to mention that Micah and Bill spend most of their days drunk, picking fights, harassing the women, or all three at once, in spectacularly talented displays of ‘milling about doing absolutely nothing’. Then there’s Reverend Swanson, sad sight that he is in his various vices, or even Strauss, a vile little man with scant worth beyond the resale price of his shiny coat buttons. Sean drinks about as much as Uncle, but isn’t always half as harmless; Molly barely ever enters the camp proper let alone do anything to help out, spending her days far down the beach, her bustle skirt dragging in the dirty sand. She’s “nobody’s servant girl”, after all.

At least Trelawny has the decency to be jovial in his inactivity.

And what of Dutch? How can any part of his day be considered more valuable to the camp than Arthur’s smallest finger? When the majority is spent with his feet up observing his kingdom like a fat lord at the distant end of a feasting table? Making grand and verbose speeches that say very little of genuine use about anything whatsoever, yelling at Molly one moment and purring at Mary-Beth the next like he isn’t old enough to be her father, refusing to listen to any kind of reason and simply _look_ for Arthur, thereby avoiding this whole catastrophe in the first place. Yet even that seems beyond Dutch’s capability, as if the sheer weight of the entire tin of pomade slicked into his hair has caused untold blunt force trauma to his brain, and he’s thus incapable of using it to form any coherent thought that doesn’t concern how much money they’re lacking.

God _damnit_.

Besides the girls’ offering to help with laundry and supplies, for which he is more than grateful, no one else seems to be queueing up to lend a hand. John had come when asked, Hosea looks in with his sad expression to press Arthur for more details on Colm’s boys that he can’t give, Sean and Lenny pass by when politeness dictates. But no one else has offered to help him wash himself, or redress Arthur’s wounds, or even offer their company when he’s feeling his worst - except perhaps the Reverend, volunteering on several occasions to read Arthur his last rites, which wasn’t particularly helpful to say the least.

No one else is fetching him water since he can’t get his own, or helping him put on socks when his ankles feel like glass, or reading to him to help him fall asleep. Calming him from nightmares that shake him so badly the bedclothes need changing, helping him dress because his shoulder won’t accommodate the movement needed to get his hand in his damn shirt sleeve, supporting him to take a fucking piss when the pain makes it impossible to lean out of bed enough to get to the bucket.

And Charles is _glad_ to do it. Honoured to have so much of Arthur’s trust, and so happy to help, even if it’s only to sit with Arthur in silence so he doesn’t feel alone. Being alone is hard at the best of times. Being alone when vulnerable is the worst, most debilitating isolation, making any hope of recovery seem so much harder to find. He knows that, so he’ll be damned if he’ll let Arthur suffer for a second unnecessarily, see him struggle by himself when his time and patience are the least he can give.

Why does no one else seem to feel the same way?

The domestic remnants of their existence together since Arthur returned are systematically exposed to the sunlight as Miss Grimshaw finishes stripping the wagon, once again left to the open air in all its ugly detail - from the bucket beneath the table that serves as a chamber pot; to the blood-soaked gauze wadding from that morning ready to be disposed of; the union suit with the indelible vomit stains that no amount of scrubbing has managed to wash out; the stewed leftover tea in the kettle; the messy cot where they’d just begun to get used to sleeping together, to sharing chaste kisses without first checking to see if they’re overlooked. It’s an unpleasant, invasive look at Arthur’s life since his ordeal, putting him on display, allowing the wider world entrance to something that was only ever meant to be shared by them, and them alone.

By the time the canvas is folded and stored in its original place, Arthur’s sense of alienation has come flooding back in earnest, and he barely speaks at all as he sits on his bed once it’s free, knees to his chest. Susan leaves them be - thankfully, because Charles near bites through his tongue keeping silent as she continues to grumble - and Charles begins to tidy up the clutter that’s accumulated around the wagon, now that it’s no longer a secluded, private chamber.

It occurs to him as he works that he’s effectively wiping away his own presence from Arthur’s space, detaching himself from threads that have become tangled around them both. It’s a dehumanising feeling, and something hot prickles over the back of his neck as he gathers up his pack and his clothes - akin to shame. The feeling of being caught in the act, publicly embarrassed; Miss Grimshaw has given him the same sensation, even though nothing shameful has happened.

Arthur stays silent. He doesn’t talk much for the rest of the day, as if the sunlight is too harsh, the background noise of conversation and cicadas too great, the exhaustion in every muscle too crippling to muster enough energy to speak. It’s impossible to hide once the canvas is gone, and he withers in the naked light, the small semblance of peace they’d shared while eating shattered beyond much hope of repair.

As the others go about their days, every look or glance or hesitant comment seems to shrivel his confidence further, crumpling it like an old scrap of paper, and as Charles watches the afternoon drift into evening, it strikes him that they’re treating him like some kind of sideshow attraction. Deliberately or not, he’s been paraded in front of a crowd of gawking faces and judgemental eyes, his vulnerability demeaned into public space by the dismantling of the tent like it’s some kind of gaudy spectacle. Like a circus animal in a cage. A stately lion behind bars, his mane shaved and claws pulled out.

There isn’t ever much privacy or respite in such communal living, but at least there was _some_. At least the effort was made. Now he has nothing. As if his recovery is the gang’s property too, like his life. Theirs to control.

“So,” comes Bill’s slurred voice, nursing a bottle of beer as he lounges in a chair beneath the shade of Hosea’s lean-to. Already three sheets to the wind and it’s barely suppertime. Lips tight, Charles sets his bedroll and belongings down where they used to be across from Bill, reluctantly ferrying them over from Arthur’s wagon once it’s clear he’s not going to be able to stay. Not anymore. “You...ff- Finally decided...to rejoin us.”

He takes his familiar place on the ground, kneeling down to unfurl the tarpaulin and blankets that make up his bed, spreading the roll out and patting it down. Bill brandishes his bottle at him from his seat, volume inconsistent, belching before he speaks again. “Slummin’ with us...lesh- Lessers. No fancy _pillows_ an’ tents here. Ya sleep on the ground! Like a _man_!”

Still Charles tries to ignore him. He takes some clean clothes out of his pack, his leather roll of carving tools, a book of poetry Arthur had enjoyed listening to him read from. ‘Walt’ somebody or other. There are tiny doodled drawings all over the inside cover. Maybe he should take it over and offer to read to him for a while, even though he certainly isn’t the most eloquent reader of poetry. Arthur doesn’t seem to mind. Anything to lessen the abject misery the demolished tent has caused.

Charles glances over across the camp. It can’t be much more than a dozen yards or so, but it feels like he’s miles away as he spots Arthur still sitting on his cot, hunched over his own knees and appearing to be drawing, trying to keep himself sane. Miss Grimshaw be damned, it won’t stop him spending as much time as possible with Arthur. Tent or no tent.

“Whatchu ain’t- Ain’t even g-gonna...talk t’me no more?” Bill demands, drops of beer glistening in his beard, the smell ripe. His chair wobbles beneath him with each violent gesture of his hands, thin legs teetering in the dirt. “You too...high’n mighty now? Been wipin’ Morgan’s...gold- Gold-shitting- Wipin’ his ass too long? _Huh_?”

Jaw clenched, Charles takes a breath. If he gave voice to everything he wanted to say whenever he wanted to say it, he’d have been thrown out of Dutch’s gang months ago. As it is, he’s forced to hold back, subdued into silence lest the situation escalate, knowing it would be him that would take the brunt of the fallout. Bill, Micah, men like them… They don’t need any more excuses.

They certainly don’t make it easy not to punch them, however.

“Now...now you can...git doin’ some real work! Like _me_! I been workin’ on...on shc- sh- schemes! In Rhodes! Y-You ain’t done sh-shit in weeks...‘cept s-stroke Morgan’s- Morgan’s _balls_ , ya lazy...halfbreed bastard.”

Charles’ eyes finally flick to him, dark and unblinking from the other side of the lean-to. “Do work, like you?” he asks, voice low in a warning growl.

“ _Right_ , like me! Jus- Just today, I caught- Caught sh- So many bass-”

“Before or after stealing from the donation box?”

Bill’s mouth shuts with an audible snap. “Whatchu say t’me?”

“Work on your subtlety.”

“You- You better watch your _f-filthy_ mouth-”

Lumbering upwards, Bill jerks around in the chair, its unstable legs tipping with his swinging weight. “Shit-” The expression slides off his face in slow motion. He overcorrects his balance, frozen for a split second in pre-fall, and then crashes sideways, tumbling to the ground in a cussing heap of limbs and sloshed beer, chair falling sadly over on top of him.

Silent, Charles sets his pack at the head of his bedroll to serve as his pillow later, and gets to his feet. Taking a step forward, he stands over the hissing pile that is Bill, blank fury in his face, black mane looking to Bill like the cowl of Death himself.

“Watch yours,” Charles spits, snarling wolf-like, teeth bared and nostrils wide with the scent of alcohol, appetite whetted, the adrenaline thrill of rage drumming through him like fever.

He leaves the lean-to. Heads back to Arthur’s wagon, the poetry book in his hand.

 

In spite of Miss Grimshaw’s loud hint, Charles doesn’t leave Arthur’s side until the last possible moment, far past dinner and well into the firefly-laden night. If the others talk, comment on how they still sit beside each other on Arthur’s cot, visible to anyone who looks in their direction - which he’s sure they do - he can’t find it in himself to care, to even try to make whatever they’re doing less obvious, and he doubts Arthur can either. He spends the evening sketching in the margins of last week’s newspaper - his drawings never hidden from Charles’ view, even when the subject of the sketch is Charles himself - listening to him read aloud beside him, barely uttering a word.

But the night draws in, and Arthur is well beyond exhausted, anxiety visibly rising with every hour that passes past the late sunset. By the time midnight nears, his folded leg is bouncing so violently that the cot creaks beneath them, noncommittal when Charles reluctantly suggests he get some sleep, having to partition enough brain power from a fog of restless tension in order to speak at all. When he looks at Charles, the candlelight pools in the hollows beneath his aching eyes, highlighting the tiny round burns on his hands and tanned forearms, his scraggly facial hair, overgrown into a patchy beard. His bandaged chest is curled inwards from all angles, making him seem frail and small, trembling with anxious energy like a jaundiced leaf, clinging to its branch with the last vestige of its strength before it crumbles into nothing.

“Please,” Charles says, soft and rich, the colour of claret red wine. “I’ll stay.”

Arthur glances up at him, careworn and pale, like an overused carpet, starting to fray and wear too thin from constant wear. He shakes his head, forcing himself into movement. “S’fine… Don’t worry yourself none.”

“I worry plenty.”

“S’why you’re goin’ grey.”

“ _You’re_ making me go grey.”

“S’a talent.”

Sighing, Arthur folds the newspaper, and reaches over to put it on his bedside table, wincing with every movement, pain constant. His face contorts despite how he tries to mask it, keep his expression controlled, only softening once he feels Charles’ hand on the small of his back, rubbing slow circles over his spine.

“If you ask me to, I’ll stay,” Charles murmurs, quiet beneath the humming night insects, the chirping crickets in the undergrowth, the croaking of a bullfrog further down the shore. Bats dart through the lantern lights, skittering black shadows against the starlit sky. He looks for Arthur’s eyes, sincere as always. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Mm,” Arthur mumbles, gaze downcast to his lap. “S’fine... I don’t care neither, but- I… Guess I gotta get used to it again. Bein’ alone.”

Solemn, Charles sets his teeth together, hand hesitating on Arthur’s back. What he wants to say - the rare occasion words do present themselves to him, simple in their honesty - feels far too big without the privacy of the canvas around them, open to the night air, the slight breeze coming in from the lake just enough to offset the humid warmth. It might be too much for Arthur to hear, that if it were up to Charles, Arthur would never have to be alone again.

Would it frighten him further? Would it cause him more anxiety instead of comfort?

Charles tries to be sure, in everything he says, wasting words on nothing, but as always, Arthur manages to create exceptions to the rule without trying, tying loopholes in the fabric Charles lives by. There aren’t words to qualify what has happened to Arthur. Without precedent, or any kind of experience, Charles fears whatever he could think to say will be unhelpful at best, harmful at worst.

The canvas gave him a sense of security too.

In the intimidating open of the camp, the fragile calm of candlelight seems as though it will break with one misstep, and shatter Arthur with it. No matter how badly he longs for Arthur, how dearly he wants to comfort him, he doesn’t truly know how to help.

Reluctantly, he sets words aside, and focuses on rubbing warmth into Arthur’s backbone, a silent reassurance in place of a vocalised one. 

“Besides,” Arthur says, visibly trying to shake off his own melancholy, like a dog shakes mud. His voice falsely brightens, forced higher. “You’re only over there.”

He gestures, nodding towards the lean-to across the camp. “I can holler if I gotta...bother you some more. Need some...peeled grapes or somethin’.”

“I’ll come running,” Charles says softly, and it’s obvious he isn’t exaggerating.

Hesitating before he leaves, Charles kisses him, close-lipped and chaste, a fraction of the kiss he wants to give. Arthur’s got his eyes shut when Charles pulls back, and keeps them shut for a long moment, lips slightly open, a silent plea for it not to end, for the fear and forced acceptance in him to be drowned in Charles’ mouth, licked silent with his tongue, bitten beneath his teeth.

They say goodnight.

It feels wrong, when he heads to Hosea’s lean-to. Arthur blows out the lantern lighting his wagon and is bathed in unforgiving darkness, hiding him not just from Charles’ reach, but from his sight too.

It feels wrong to lie down alone. Even after no more than a scant fortnight sleeping together, he’s become so used to Arthur’s presence that it’s almost embarrassing, learnt the rhythm of his heartbeat, the deep rise and fall of his chest, the way he curls up in his sleep like a bear cub, soft and warm on his side. It feels wrong to settle on the ground, wrong to hear Bill’s snoring so close instead of Arthur’s breathing, wrong to not be able to nuzzle Arthur’s hair with his nose, to feel Arthur’s hesitant lips press a kiss to the scar bisecting his right eyebrow.

How strange it is, that being apart from him has become so uncomfortable, so isolating, when mere months ago Charles wouldn’t have been able to fathom another person’s presence being preferable to being alone. The very idea would have seemed ludicrous. And yet here he is, yearning for Arthur as he used to yearn for solitude.

Hosea is already asleep in the next bedroll, and Charles sighs as he shifts to face the open side of the lean-to, just able to see the glowing embers of the scouts’ campfire in the distance, past the group of mares. They’d kissed there, an age ago now, and he settles with the memory at the forefront of his mind, a private comfort in the crowded, lonely dark.

 

It is night.

All is purple, ghostlike mist, dark shadows tangled with the cushion plants, moss and tussock grass, distorted, limbs overlong. Indigo waves ebb and flow, whispering ribbons between moonlit muzzles, rippling to the forested shore, the breaker of lodgepole pines.

Dew-jewelled and silent, breath condensed, twitching noses, the night is calm. Hare’s ears erect, elk’s bugling call from the pine-rich slopes, leeward breeze scatters shale and scree, and sudden sound disturbs his hallowed hall, rafters empty, cobweb grey.

Hoofbeats from the western firs, the northern creek, brown bear’s domain. His herd listens. He is above and within, far off and fearing, nose wet, flight in his spine, in his cannons, his flanks. Monarch of his eyrie, restless; meadow cold and eerie still, he lifts his crowned head. Ears flick.

Hoofbeats, again, thundering, driving rain in the northern creek, the western woods, close and closing. He sniffs the air; a battlement king, rallying from the ramparts, head high and sharp, summer thorns, mountain larches tenfold branched. His only weapon.

Hoofbeats, hoofbeats. Kicking, snagging on the saxifrage, the purple heather, slipping, tearing his verdant palace walls, his quiet kingdom, blurring starlit night with metallic noise. Shots ring out. Whiplike crack, bones split and bleeding, tar-thick blood spilled down a tawny neck, splintered in death. Her pain is his; he screams for her. The does run.

He calls, bellows, soft thyme beneath and horses surround, closing fast, dripping foam, wild eyes. Muzzles aim, roaring shots, braying, flashing lightning.

They run. Run and run. Rifles churn the grassland floor, catch his flank, his heaving neck. Still he runs, shepherds his herd, and only then, hinds’ hind hooves beyond the trees, turns to galloping, hammering horses. Hunters. Stumbles forward, blood-blind. Faces the barrels, roaring deep, lowered to charge.

Hands reach, snatching for holsters, instinct-led-

No hands respond. A rifle bolt slides. Shotgun cocks.

His shoulder explodes.

Arthur wakes like a door slams. He’s panting aloud, hands fumbling, blindly groping for Charles beside him. “Ch...Charles?”

All he finds is the adjacent wall of his wagon, knuckles knocking into wood on one side, the bedside table on the other, photo frame wobbling as he bats uselessly for something Charles-shaped with his weak hand, right clamped to his opposite shoulder, pressing at the dressing, holding it tight. “Charles-”

Charles isn’t there. Isn’t sleeping on the floor beside the bed either, isn’t sitting by the table, isn’t tidying the tent space. Isn’t anywhere.

Night air hits him, cold on the sweat dripping from his hairline, the wetness of his twitching nose, his flicking ears.

Crickets hum in the darkness, and Arthur is alone.

 

Traipsing his way from the treeline back towards the camp, John is far more concerned with the handful of hours he’ll get to sleep before the sunlight makes it impossible not to get up than he is about the distant movement from around Arthur’s wagon. Guard duty is tedious enough at the best of times, but guard duty at night is somehow worse, all the more unnerving, infinitely more exhausting, and so much more imperative that he stays awake, lest someone actually try to enter the camp while the rest of them are asleep. As any halfway competent intruder would.

There’s still a few hours of darkness left. Maybe he’ll manage to sleep in.

He needs a drink.

“Hey,” John says, hushed against the silence, the only noises being nocturnal insects, the ever-present lapping of waves on the shore around the clearing.

“Hey,” Javier replies, low with interrupted sleep, hair tousled from its usual neat ponytail, stubble unshaved around the clipped lines of his goatee.

They meet just outside the camp proper, and John slings the rifle strap over his head to pass to Javier, watching him check the sights before he shoulders the weapon himself, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.

“Ain’t disturbin’ your...beauty sleep, I hope,” John says, tone conversational despite the gravel rasp of tiredness. He absently follows Javier’s thumb as it runs beneath the leather strap, balancing the rifle behind himself, stock knocking into his thigh.

“Please,” Javier replies, voice thick. “If I take more beauty sleep, my beauty will become…” He fishes for the right word in his pre-dawn English vocabulary, gesticulating with his free hand. “Irresistible.”

John snorts.

“I would be desired by all who look at me. Women, men…”

“Oh yeah?” John raises an eyebrow, smirk tweaking the corners of his lips.

“Yes, my friend. It just would not be fair on the rest of you.”

Snickering, Javier moves past him, and turns to bid John goodnight, only he stops mid-gesture, staring nonplussed at something over John’s shoulder. His smile cuts out like a blown light bulb.

Turning to follow his gaze, John finds a very ungainly Arthur stumbling towards them, stooped over slightly at the waist like he’s taken several blows to the gut. He marches barefoot and only dressed in his underwear, arms pulling his way through the still air, batting at invisible obstacles, like he’s wading through quicksand as fast as humanly possible.

What in Hell is he doing?

“Arthur?”

“H-How many?” Arthur snaps, heaving for breath as he reaches them, wide eyed and frenzied. “How many of you’s on guard?”

Sweat glistens on his temples in the moonlight, bright and damp in his hair, a swathe staining his union suit in a dark V down to his groin. It’s all he wears, clinging to his frame like a badly-fitted second skin, sticking to the paunch of his belly, the left shoulder poorly pulled up to cover his bandages. It’s obvious how much weight he’s lost, ribs visible when the fabric goes taut. “How many?!”

Blinking, Javier looks to John. John blinks back at him. “Uh…”

“S’not enough! Y-You gotta- Gotta guard the north. They’re comin’- The woods, it ain’t safe!”

Lips twitching in a pale half-smile, an instinctive grimace of a man who has absolutely no idea what to do in the situation he’s found himself in, Javier holds his hands up and out in weak surrender, gaze again flicking to John. “I...think you need to get some more sleep, my friend,” he says, every word measured and unconvincing, like he’s trying to talk a live grenade into slotting its own pin back into place.

“It were just me on guard,” John explains in turn, slow, eyebrows twisted up in deep concern. “I was just...handin’ over to Javier. You uh- You ain’t got pants on, Arth-”

“It’s not _enough_!”

Starting forward, Arthur jerks towards Javier, who instinctively steps back, suddenly defensive. “Arthur-”

“Gimme the gun.”

“Uh- I think...Javier’s right, Arthur, you should-”

Completely ineffective, John takes a hesitant step towards him, where Arthur is attempting to tug the rifle from Javier’s much stronger grip, showing no sign that he’s even aware John is speaking. “Just- Hey. Get some more sleep, huh? You ain’t...lookin’ so good.”

“Gimme the gun!”

“No!”

“Give it- I _need_ it!”

“I’m not- ¡Híjole! -I’m not giving you the gun!”

Wrenching away from sweat-slick palms, Javier wrestles the rifle out of reach, and Arthur snarls in frustration, hair falling over his forehead, making him look like some kind of rabid animal.

“Fine! Kill us all! I’ll- I’ll get my f-fuckin’ own!”

Furious, he starts off back in the opposite direction, staggering in a vaguely leftwards line. Another dark patch of sweat coats the back of his union suit from neck to buttoned backside, and he limps painfully, tilted precariously over to one side, the muscles of his left torso and abdomen unable to evenly bear his body weight without pitching his centre of balance between steps to compensate. It’s a hideous, embarrassing thing to watch, and John looks anxiously to Javier before they start after him, jogging to catch up.

“Arthur, stop damnit-”

“You- None of you is listenin’!”

“Then talk to us, my friend, please. What troubles you?”

“You feelin’ sick again?”

“It ain’t _safe_ ,” Arthur says, babbling constantly to himself, a stream of jumbled thoughts and warnings, every movement jerking and unbalanced, the same as his voice. “We’re sittin’- Sittin’ ducks, all of us! They’re gonna- The woods. Ain’t s-safe, gotta- Need more guards.”

Sharing another stricken glance, John and Javier corner him at the edge of Hosea’s lean-to, where several rifles and repeaters are leant against a crate, for use by the camp guards. Arthur grabs one, upside down, still panting as he attempts to again head out to the perimeter, coming face to face with John, who bodily stands in his way.

“Marston, lemme go-”

“I ain’t lettin’ you, you need to get back to bed-”

“None of you is- You ain’t doin’ it _right_! Gotta do it m-myself, damn _morons_ , g-gonna- Gonna get us all _killed_! They’re comin’, I killed his boys.”

Bracketing John’s side to form a two man barricade, Javier throws his own rifle to the ground a distance away, looking at Arthur like he’s just watched him murder his grandmother. It’s hard not to. He looks deranged, hair plastered to his dripping forehead, eyes wide and darting in frantic panic, trying to push past John as he rants under his snatched breath. His left hand paws uselessly at the rifle’s bolt lever, as if attempting to open the breech by vague muscle memory alone, a clumsy and completely ineffective fumble that achieves exactly nothing.

“And _stop_ lookin’ at me like that!” he snaps at John, snarling with the exertion in his voice, sounding like a wounded bear in its last desperate roar, pain and fear torn ragged from his chest. He gestures with the upside down rifle. “They’re gonna come! Comin’ for me- More guards. Gotta guard the north!”

“No one’s comin’ for you,” John says slowly, unable to hide the biting tone of incredulity in his own words, confusion only making it worse. “And no one’s lookin’ at you like nothin’!”

“They’re comin’ for _me_ ,” Arthur repeats, desperate, each word shrill and grating, staring wide-eyed up at him as if earnestness alone will make him understand, will open his eyes to the danger only he can see.

Hesitant, John places his hand on Arthur’s right shoulder, and can feel how badly he’s shaking from just a small point of contact, trembling internally, crazed and barking like a poisoned dog, foaming at the mouth in its last screams. It’s like he’s still in the grip of some nightmare, and is sleep-walking through the waking world to get help, every movement manic and dragged down by the sluggish weight of sleep and pain. Worse, John has no idea what to do.

“Ain’t no one comin’, Arthur,” he tries again, shaking his head. It only seems to quicken Arthur’s panic, face contorted as he again tries to push past, clawing at John’s touching hand like it’s choking him. “We don’t need no more guards. You ain’t thinkin’ right-”

Infuriated, Arthur makes a noise like kicking a rat into a wall, a crunchy sort of squeal, hissed through clenched teeth, spittle flying from his lips, droplets clinging in his overgrown beard. “You’re a fuckin’ _idiot_ , Mar- M-Marston, let me- We’re all in danger, they gonna come from- F-From all around, you don’t-”

“What in the _Sam Hill_ is goin’ on?!”

Bill’s voice shatters the camp’s night calm, bellowing from where he’s leant up in his bedroll on the ground, tucked beneath the shade of the lean-to a few yards away. He lumbers to his feet, union suit more stained than Arthur’s is, a hungry predator rousing from its sleep and scenting the blood of whoever disturbed him, face red and pinched in fury.

Only able to stare back at him, John and Javier again look to each other, blank and useless, like they’re watching a train crash in front of them, helpless to do anything but stare and watch the horror.

“Let me _go_!”

“God damnit, Arthur-”

Dragging a hand through his hair, Bill storms to the three of them, throwing his hands up in anger, ready to start brawling. “The fuck is all this noise?” he demands, voice still heavy with the effects of drink, reeking of old alcohol. “Some of us is tryna-”

He tilts his head, staring at Arthur. His snatched breath, the way he wobbles and weakly shoves the rifle at John, trying pointlessly to get past. John simply takes it out of his hands. “Fuck’s wrong with him?”

“He- Ah…” Javier’s teeth click together. “He is in need of some more sleep, right Arth-”

“No I _ain’t_! Get the H-Hell off me! They’re comin’, they’re gonna _kill_ me-”

Voice breaking, Arthur grabs a fistful of his own hair with his right hand, face roiling like an overflowing storm drain as he pulls at it. “Killed his boys, he’s gonna- Kill me back, I shouldn’t’ve got free, I ain’t gettin’ b-back out. Need more guards, need more, ain’t got enough- _Stop fucking looking at me_!”

For a second, the only sound is the perpetual crickets, chirping away in the bluestem and briars, uncaring of the commotion raging to a crescendo just past Hosea’s shelter. Arthur heaves, teetering on his feet, spit slick around his mouth. He looks a second away from bursting into tears.

And then Bill laughs.

Breaking through the stillness like a shotgun blast, he snorts and hoots, guffawing through his nose with ugly abandon, all teeth and belly. 

John’s eyes flick down to Arthur, to his pale expression, caught between violent fury and a small soul-crushing distress John has never seen in him before. It’s a fragile, trembling fear, a hollow abandonment colliding with rash and frenzied panic, drowning him, unravelling the weft and weave that make up his entire being. Arthur is always so hardheaded, so able and experienced, and never too serious about anything, irreverent and sarcastic when he can’t rely on a gun to fix his problems. In all the years John’s known him, he’s never been one to break down or fall apart. Seeing him do exactly that is...horrifying, like nothing John can understand.

How can he possibly say anything to make this better? It looks like Arthur’s very seams are ripping, cracks splintering through him at all angles, distraught and desperate. How is anyone supposed to fix that? He’s not cut out to talk to his own kid, let alone Arthur in the midst of...whatever terror is plaguing him.

“Bill, your ability to make any situation worse is a true talent,” Javier snaps, losing all hint of humour in his growl.

“He started it! _‘Stop looking at me’_ , who the Hell you think you are, Morgan, you bellyachin’ _asshole_.”

Throwing his hands up, Bill is seething like a train boiler, huffing and hissing, face so red it looks like it might pop. “What you got to be cryin’ about, huh? Need your pillows turned? Want your dick sucked while you sh- Sit on your ass?” He spits on the grass to the side, appealing to John and Javier for their agreement. “Answer me then, you limp prick-”

“Williamson, will you shut your mouth for one _goddamn second_!”

A new voice yells above the din, and Hosea sits up on his bedroll, managing to look the most dangerous of all of them even from the ground. He shakes Charles’ shoulder beside him, rousing him completely from the state between sleep and full awareness, body tired enough to try to ignore the distant shouting for as long as possible.

The multiple voices don’t seem to help, and Arthur tries again to shove his way past John, desperation rising, attempting to tug the rifle free at the same time even though only one of his hands is working. “They’re comin’,” he rasps, eyes glassy, and so wide in fear it’s like they’re prisoners inside his skull, reaching hands trying to escape their eye socket cells. The sweat is streaming from his temples. “You g-gotta- Ain’t enough, _p-please_ \- One ain’t enough!”

Hosea appears in Arthur’s field of view, tired and hunched, with an expression he can’t read in his agitation, some deliberate mix of kindly and wary, the face of a man attempting to talk another down from a roof edge. A faux pity, perhaps, and it makes Arthur snort and thrash against John’s one-handed hold, nostrils wide and trembling like a doe’s, exhaling the sharpness of anger, of the urge to scream at all of them.

They’re not listening.

Why is no one listening?

“What’s this fuss for, son?” Hosea asks, soft, holding Arthur’s arm to replace John’s hand. He squeezes-

Arthur flinches backwards, brings his arms across his chest, a barrier, stumbling into the crates around Hosea’s lean-to with a clunk. His head snaps back, eyes looking for an exit, darting in his head like flies. He snatches up another rifle. “Hey, now- Calm down, alright? Ain’t nobody hurtin’ you. Put the gun down. We wanna help-”

“You ain’t helping!” Arthur cries, voice starting to border on hysterical.

His knuckles are white on the gun, holding it tight over his sweating chest, union suit pulled with every heave of his lungs, straining each button. There’s not enough air to breathe, the lack starting to swim in his head, make his limbs tremble all the more. “I need to- Need to guard, I gotta- They’re…I-I can’t-”

“Arthur?”

Gunshot fast, Arthur startles at the new, familiar voice, losing his balance and stumbling again as he flinches. Bracing for what, he isn’t sure. Pain, a punch, who knows. Hosea’s grip tightens again on his arm, and Arthur wrenches himself free with a rasping bark, catching himself on the crates piled by the lean-to before he falls, fingers white and scrabbling, palms wet with sweat and shaking all the more. “Let go! I need- Alla you, lemme go- Stop- S-Stop it, they’re gonna come- Comin’ for me-”

“He’s cracked in the head,” Bill’s voice mumbles.

“I’ll crack your head if you don’t shut up,” John’s voice snaps back.

Again, the familiar voice sounds, closer, and Arthur clings to the crates and the rifle both as he tries to pull himself back to standing, breathing quickly turning to sobs, nose starting to run.

“Arthur,” it says, soft, and he finds Charles in the midst of the chaos, appeared from the darkness with his long johns and bare chest, his eyes like earth beneath thick snow, a promise that spring will come with winter’s thaw.

Charles doesn’t touch him, doesn’t look at him with the others’ obvious upset, gazes like spectators at a hanging, watching in morbid interest as the hyoid bone fractures with the snap of rope. How the muscles twitch in death, and Arthur publicly humiliates himself, his descent just as fascinating as the way the corpse sways, suspended balletic as it grows cold. He simply lets Arthur’s eyes find his, and holds his gaze as one holds a tiny fragile creature, a baby bird or newborn pup, carefully comforting.

The maelstrom seems to pause, hold its breath, its massing clouds baying at Arthur’s exposed edges like circling wolves, licking like rising flames. Panic plays out on his face, expressions jumbled together in one formless panting crash, as lost physically as he clearly is in his head.

“I gotta guard,” he says, voice wretchedly small. His eyes shine in the low light, glassy with unshed tears, nose dripping. “They’re c-comin’ for me. S’not enough. Just one ain’t enough.”

Charles listens. “Okay,” he says, just as quiet, just as soft. Five pairs of eyes snap to him. “If it isn’t enough, we’ll make sure there’s more guards.”

“We already have duty around the clock,” Javier mutters, gesturing to John, to Bill. “What more can we do?”

Again, Arthur makes a strangled noise. At once, the storm resumes, a clap of thunder shaking the rafters that hold up the sky. The clouds swallow him, rain pouring, and he pushes past all of them, staggering forward on his quaking legs. “So I gotta,” he snaps, and has marched a good few yards before anyone can react, left staring after him into the night.

A desperate frown pulls at Charles’ face for just a second, lips tight, eyes brimming with worry, with a fierce and trembling _something_ Hosea is the only one to recognise for what it is. Heartbreak. He starts after Arthur a moment later, the expression having vanished.

Mute and motionless, the others simply stare after them, following Arthur’s pained procession towards the treeline until his left leg seems to give out at the hip. He falls awkwardly forward onto his hands, the rifle clattering from his grasp, and Charles is there a moment later, dropping to the grass in front of him as Arthur settles weakly back on his heels, head bowed.

“Arthur!”

Charles reaches him a second too late to stop the fall, skidding to meet him as he’s picking himself up, grass clinging to his shaking palms. As he sits back, he cradles his left arm, clearly feeling the impact more deeply through the damaged muscles and nerves, and keeps his chin tucked to his chest, hair falling limp over his forehead in lank, sweaty strands.

“Arthur?” Charles says again, and then notices the tears, dripping fast from his cheekbones, the end of his nose, spattering to his chest like raindrops. Each one catches the moonlight, a tiny silver drop, white tracks forming down his cheeks, flowing from his jawline, his bearded chin.

Charles is powerless to help, hovering in front of him, unwilling to touch without consent and not knowing what to say without physical comfort as a language to call on, unable to be sure what will or won’t help. Despite having seen Arthur break down a few times now, it isn’t any easier to watch with experience. No less painful and upsetting than it was the first time, sat in the dust of that cornfield, seeing him drown within himself.

“I’m here,” is all he can think to say, voice agonisingly gentle, the barest brush of invisible fingers. He shows his empty hands, offering himself. “I’ve got you.”

With a choked sob, Arthur falls forward again, only this time to Charles’ chest, his clenched hands against his bare skin, head on his sternum as he cries. “Shh, I’ve got you,” Charles whispers, wrapping him fiercely in his arms, feeling the damp of his sweat covering his back, soaked through his union suit. He rubs one hand over his spine, soothing the shaking in his shoulders as he tries desperately to be silent, the gasps of his breath like sandpaper on stone. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

Over Arthur’s head, he can see the others still crowded together, seemingly talking. About Arthur, no doubt, and a familiar burst of indignation pulls in his gut. If Susan hadn’t dismantled the one bit of privacy they had - likely at Dutch’s behest, he reckons - Arthur could have woken in peace and safety, and talked about whatever fears the night had given him with someone, before it ever got to the point where he had to act upon them. If Charles had been there, he could have helped, could have comforted-

As it is, he wasn’t there, and Arthur had to struggle on his own.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, nuzzling into Arthur’s hair, arms tight around him. Who cares if the others can see? He presses a kiss to his head, rubbing his back, and feels the tiniest mite better when Arthur manages to unclench his fists, and settle his palms flat on Charles’ chest, taking comfort in the smooth, bare skin.

Charles doesn’t know how long it takes. Only that the sky above them lightens a shade with the dusky haze of pre-dawn, starting to glow on the horizon far behind them where the sun lurks just beneath, the indigo night blown with shades of blue and mauve high overhead. Arthur’s tears run dry only when there’s none left to shed, and he huddles against Charles’ chest, sniffing every other breath with the remnants of his sobs, shivering as his sweat dries, leaving him cold and drained. In actuality, it’s but a quarter hour, but feels like so much longer, the fear he’d felt still holding him tight, playing with his mind.

“We gotta… Gotta post more guards,” he mumbles, lips wet, spattering with the run-off from his nose, voice barely sounding.

“That’s okay,” Charles replies, nuzzling again into his hair, one hand cradling the back of his head. “I’ll make sure there’s more.”

Weak, Arthur nods against his chest, sighing in the small relief he feels in Charles’ effortless reassurance, how he rubs his back and kisses his head. “You’re safe,” he says, and it’s sincere enough that Arthur almost believes him. “You’re safe with me.”

Again, Arthur nods, and shuts his eyes, sniffling.

Charles’ breath is hot in his hair, and he presses another kiss there, content to sit in the grass all night and all day if that’s what Arthur needs. Still, it’s obvious how exhausted he is, every muscle in spasm, a trembling clatter of bones in Charles’ arms. Relaxing is barely possible, wound too tight to even breathe without shuddering, without noisy sobs despite his tears having stopped. The last thing he wants is to catch a chill either. Getting him back to bed would be preferable, even if he has to carry him.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Charles whispers, and feels Arthur pick his head up, bloodshot eyes peeking up at him from his chest, brimming with worry.

“Wh- ...If- S-Stay with me?”

“Of course. As long as you want.”

The relief on Arthur’s face is obvious, and his thumb strokes Charles’ bare chest as he settles his head back against his collarbone, hand pressed over his heart. He sniffs again and drags his union suit sleeve over his face, wiping the clinging tears, the saliva from his chin, rubbing uselessly at his sore eyes.

They get to their feet slowly, Charles first and then Arthur with his support, helping him up on his unsteady legs. Pain twists through his torso, punishing so much movement before his body is truly ready for it, and Charles holds him close as they amble back towards the camp, Arthur seeming to shrink further inwards with every step. He clings to Charles’ side, weak as a rag doll being towed along by a child’s hand, cloth feet dragging in the dirt.

Hosea, Bill, John, and Javier are congregated in the lean-to, sitting on the ground around the square space, bottles in most hands, single lantern lit. Only Hosea looks up as Charles helps Arthur move past, the others staying conspicuously silent, as if given orders not to make anything worse by reacting.

“I, uh- I’ll pick up a guard shift,” Hosea says, standing to talk to Charles. He rubs his unshaven chin, a grey shadow underlining his pale face, eyelids heavy like broken blinds in the window of an abandoned house. “We’ll have two runnin’ at a time, coverin’ both routes in. Does that- Uh… That sound good?”

Conflicted for a moment, Charles pauses, glancing at Arthur by his side, his deliberately downcast gaze. While his anxiety is still so high, it’s surely the best course of action, but Charles is reluctant to force Hosea into a long guard shift even if it is for Arthur’s benefit. There are others amongst them who are fitter, who won’t feel the effects in aching bones.

“It’s my choice,” Hosea adds, seemingly reading his mind, an honest sympathy on his face. He glances to Arthur’s crumpled figure, lips no more than one tight line. “See if I can’t get ol’ Uncle off his ass too, or Susan even. Always been handy with a shotgun, she has.”

“Thanks, Hosea,” Charles murmurs, genuine.

“Ain’t nothin’, now all of us better try get some more sleep ‘fore dawn arrives proper.”

“Sure.”

“And- Charles? Look after him.”

Crease appearing between his eyebrows, Charles sighs. If only he knew how to do that. “I’m tryin’ to,” he says quietly, and helps Arthur across the campsite to his wagon, hearing Hosea’s voice rumbling indistinctly to the others once they’re out of earshot.

It isn’t the same without the protective canvas, but somehow it still has a dependable comfort about it, a warmth even in the dark. Like returning to a once lived-in childhood home, now cold and empty, but familiar too, memories thick as dust in every corner. He’s spent so much time here in the past weeks; it’s become more homely than the camp itself, a place for him and Arthur to belong, living together in each other’s space. The open air has sapped some of that magic away, like the intimacy they’d shared within the canvas walls has flown its coop, leaked into the earth as if it never existed at all. He can only hope the feeling of safety will return in time.

His arm around Arthur’s waist, Charles guides him towards the moonlit cot, and pauses a few steps away, the light glinting oddly from the ground. The bucket chamberpot is on its side beside the bed, and its contents have obviously spilled, the dirt boggy and wet with a pool of… Well.

Arthur sniffles next to him, gaze fixed on the ground. “Tried to… Needed-” His teeth clench together with an audible click, eyes screwed shut. He snatches his breath. “Couldn’t...balance. It fell and-”

“It’s okay.”

“It ain’t okay!” he snaps, voice again turning ragged, new tears spilling over. “None of this shit is- Is f-fucking okay!”

He pushes away, folding his arms around his own chest as if he can physically keep himself from falling apart again, frame huddled inwards like an old man in the cold, spittle and mucus from his nose glinting in his beard despite how he sniffs and wipes his face. “It ain’t o-okay to just. Just f-fuckin’- Piss on the ground where you sit ‘cause you can’t- _Can’t_ …”

His throat chokes his own voice, seizing at the threat of yet more sobs, and he falls furiously silent, back slightly turned to Charles like it will hide him from sight.

Frowning, and sure he’s one upset away from bursting into tears himself, Charles is again helpless but to watch, all too aware that there’s nothing he can do to take the hurt away from Arthur, powerless to fix any of it, to relieve the burden of its weight. If he had been beside him, he could have tried to help. He could have lent his strength, held Arthur’s hand-

But would it have helped? Has anything he’s been doing, his mere presence, has it helped at all? Has he done anything right? He’s even less sure than ever.

As usual, he relies on his physical vocabulary rather than his verbal one, and steps forward to pick up the fallen bucket, aiming to set it back beneath the bedside table before an idea strikes him, and he stands back up. Taking the pail with him, he leaves Arthur for a moment, staying within his line of sight and heading to the edge of the Point, where the grass falls sharply into shoreline, shadows pooling over on the sand, bright white where the moonlight hits. He skips the miniature cliff down to the beach and stoops to fill the empty bucket with dry sand, just a featureless figure in the dark, the only distinguishable light falling on his hair in white shimmering bands.

Arthur watches him make his way back from beneath his eyebrows, breath shaky.

Once again beside him, Charles tips the sand over the wet ground, shaking out the bucket to create a small dune by Arthur’s bed, a thick enough layer to soak up any wet that the earth itself can’t absorb. Then, he sets the bucket in its rightful place under the table, and straightens up once more.

“See? It’s okay,” he says again, voice deep and soft. Arthur doesn’t look at him.

Careful, he sits on the edge of the cot, brushing his hair back with a tired hand. His shoulders tip inwards, chest wet in patches where Arthur’s tears dry in the night air. “I know it’s...not okay for you. None of this is. But…”

Words failing, voice no more than a rumble in his chest, Charles sighs and falls silent, defeated, hands unmoving in his own lap. He looks away. For so large a figure, he seems small sitting on the bed, ink-black hair pooled loose around his hunched shoulders, the swell of his belly overhanging the waistband of his simple long johns, a sober and humble image for so glorious a man.

“It will get better,” he murmurs after a moment, and looks up at him again, gentle.

Arthur doesn’t know what he did in a past life to deserve Charles in this one. And isn’t that just the problem? One of them at least. He doesn’t deserve him.

It takes a moment, but eventually he manages to take the few painful steps to sit beside him, head resting on Charles’ shoulder as he sighs with the relief of taking his weight off his feet, instantly comforted by Charles’ mere presence. The white noise in his head seems a little less loud.

Wrapping his arm around his back, Charles kisses his crown, feeling him tremble all over. “You’re too hard on yourself,” he whispers.

“S’why you’re here,” Arthur mumbles, dejected, and tired beyond words. “You’re too...too kind to… B-Balance it out.”

“You deserve kindness, Arthur.”

Remaining silent, Arthur doesn’t answer, unable to find anything to say that isn’t a protest or retort, some way of diminishing Charles’ words. It wouldn’t be fair, it never is, and remaining conscious is becoming agonising, so instead he lies down, carefully settling on his right side, hand pawing at Charles’ arm until it falls away as he turns, the touch of Charles’ hand the only thing that doesn’t hurt.

Frowning, haggard and solemn, Charles shifts his position, and slots himself deftly into his usual place against the wagon wall, pulling his hair away from his neck as he rests on Arthur’s pillow. Arthur glances up at him, the tracks of his tears like wax dripping down a candle, his mind clearly heavy with unvoiced thoughts, waterlogged and squelching like a solid pile of wet leaves in his head. He says nothing.

Despite the hesitance, he cuddles into Charles’ chest, and they fit together with practiced ease, Charles pulling the kicked blanket up to cover their tangled legs. It does little to comfort either of them.

“Sleep now,” Charles whispers into Arthur’s hair, hand wrapped around his back, union suit still slightly damp, but drying at least. “I’ll be here.”

Arthur only hums in reply, too drained for anything else, and they succumb to sleep for the few hours before dawn, the dark a tangible bedfellow to them both.

 

Morning dawns the same as any other morning. Gulls cry over the lake, competing with the bold herons, the cranes that visit the floodplains from the bayou further south, fishing in the shallows before the sun’s heat begins to swelter. It’s another bright day, high altitude cloud like tufts of washed felt, blown by a pleasant westerly breeze, just enough movement in the air that the heat doesn’t feel oppressive so close to the water, easily enjoyed. Damselflies flit through the shoreline rushes, the water only disturbed by bluegill and bass snatching flies from the surface, busy in the relative cool of the morning.

It’s been four weeks since Arthur returned to Clemens Point.

He wakes early, and exhausted. A handful of hours slept after the ass he’d made of himself during the night, every inch of him feels tired, and yet he can’t manage to fall back to sleep despite the convincing warmth of Charles’ waiting arms. His head is loud, louder even than the dawn chorus of song and seabirds, usually far easier to tune into background noise for the sake of a late start when he wakes beside Charles. Especially with his heartbeat such a soothing lullaby.

Whatever usually works, usually succeeds in staving off his discomfort for a blessed while- doesn’t. The steady rhythm beneath Charles’ breast becomes a pounding nagging ache, his warmth turning oppressive, the early quiet deafening where it is usually peaceful. So Arthur gives up, and sits defeated on the edge of the bed, forearms leant on his knees.

The rest of the camp hasn’t risen yet, easily observed now the canvas has gone from the wagon, dragging him unceremoniously back into camp life, into everyone’s sight. Despite the obvious lack of people around, he still feels watched, like the shade of grey thick beneath his eyes is being documented, discussed when he’s out of earshot, the others hidden amongst the tents and trees simply to ogle. Maybe they’re laughing about the lameness of his left hand, pitying Charles for having to deal with him, with the madness he’d succumbed to the previous night.

All because he couldn’t handle his own nightmare-induced panic attack. Couldn’t handle being alone with his own thoughts. It’s pathetic. No wonder they seem so uncomfortable around him. He’d mock himself too if a previous version of himself could see the state he’s in.

Sometimes, like he had a few hours ago, crying into Charles’ chest, he wonders if he shouldn’t have simply given up, that moment in the O’Driscoll camp. With blood and spit and days-old bile dribbling around his mouth, head resting on the corpse of the man he’d mutilated, fast growing cold in the blurry night. He had been ready to. Blind and terrified. Perhaps his eyes have recovered, but the pain is much the same, the insistent dragging in his muscles, a deep and skeletal hurt his hands can’t reach to soothe. He’d hauled that hurt from the sodden ground, picked up the pieces of his broken head. It would have been far easier not to bother.

Sometimes he wonders whether it was worth getting up at all.

Would they be grateful? Not to have to deal with him? John had looked at him as if he was a leper, and Javier too, completely embarrassed just to have to see him in that state of distress, let alone interact with him. And Bill; Bill was right.

All he has done since the first day has been to cause trouble, cause stress, cause upset. And as time has gone by, instead of recovering some sense of control over the tatters of himself, it seems instead to have spiralled further out of his hands, becoming more of a struggle with each passing day. More damage is discovered, more skills lost. Like a military battle that was only supposed to last a week, drawn out into a devastating and impossible year-long campaign. Making it back was a pyrrhic victory at best.

Maybe he really is cracked in the head.

Surely Charles would be grateful. If Arthur didn’t cause him so much pain. If he could get a night’s sleep without having to deal with whatever miserable housekeeping chore Arthur needs his help with next. Maybe stripping his soiled bed sheets, or feeding him soup he’s made himself because Arthur’s hands can’t even hold a spoon properly. Cleaning up his accidents, the spillages, washing pus from his shoulder wound every single day, rubbing ointment on his most telling and conspicuously violating bruises. Surely it would be the greatest gift Arthur could give Charles, freeing him from the demeaning task of looking after him, giving him back his own life without the burden Arthur’s put on his unfailingly kind shoulders?

Frowning, Arthur glances back at him, sleeping soundly in his bed, the most beautiful sight since the last time Arthur looked at him. How can he still sleep beside him, having seen Arthur at his worst so often? Knowing Arthur has taken advantage of his kindness so readily? How can he still touch him and smile at him, even kiss him, when all Arthur can see of himself is his own weakness, his mess, an ugly wound where once, perhaps, something positive was beginning to bloom.

Whatever it was, the growth is rotting, and Arthur himself is the disease.

It’s hard enough to believe he’s worth Charles’ friendship at the best of times, but after this? Now, he’s barely worth the shit in a bucket masquerading as a chamberpot.

Charles deserves so much better than him.

Head low, he stares absently at the grass around his wagon, eyes barely focused. All he wants is Charles. All he thinks about is Charles. The one thing in his life that gives him certainty, makes him feel like more than just an outlaw, the world’s refuse, incapable of anything but violence and pain - giving and receiving both; that one thing is Charles.

Perhaps for the past few weeks he’d only succeeded in kidding himself. Perhaps now, especially after the previous night’s embarrassment, reality will bite, and Charles will finally run out of patience, of sympathy. And Arthur will go back to being damaged goods, and the world will return to the ugly, unforgiving mire it always was before. Reassuringly familiar.

“Mm… Morning,” Charles mumbles, and Arthur only lifts his head enough to glance at him in his peripheral vision, swallowing the surge of affection that hits him at the mere sound of Charles’ sleep-heavy voice, the sight of him lounging in bed behind him like some Renaissance masterpiece in repose.

“Morning,” Arthur replies, immediately knowing his clipped tone isn’t nearly convincing enough to go unnoticed.

Bed dipping with his weight, Charles shifts closer to Arthur’s back, head propped up on his elbow beside the pillow. His hair cascades like weeping willow branches, and the heat from him is almost impossible to resist, Arthur wanting nothing more than to turn and lie back in his bare arms, forget every doubt and worry. Cling to his kindness and reassurance and pretend for another day.

He can’t let himself; Charles deserves better.

“You good?” Charles asks, effortlessly caring. The backs of his fingers brush against Arthur’s spine, tracing the ridges underneath his union suit.

“Mm. Tired.”

Charles hums in sympathy. His hand goes flat, rubbing Arthur’s back for a long moment. When there’s no further response, the movement stops, and Charles looks up at him from the bed, trying to catch his eyes. “Come back to bed?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“We could just cuddle.”

Hesitating, long enough to be awkward, Arthur just shakes his head, and leans across to the trunk at the foot of the bed. He winces with the movement, back feeling like he’s spent the last week huddled in a cupboard, and ignores Charles’ watchful stare, grabbing the pair of jeans thrown across the chest.

Still watching, Charles sits up and next to Arthur, bare feet beside his on the small mound of sand he’d created a handful of hours before. Just another reason to be ashamed, in Arthur’s view.

Shaking out the stiff denim legs, Arthur attempts to put his jeans on, the waistband held up in his right hand as the other struggles to move at all, let alone grip the fabric and assist. His feet are heavy, leaden with aches and sharp tingling in his ankles, as if he slept while sitting on them both. Lifting them under their own power is difficult, and without his left hand to assist, he’s forced to drop the jeans in order to physically pick up his own legs and set his feet in the correct holes, one by one.

Which of course means the jeans fall to the ground and fold around themselves without his hand holding them steady. Feet then too weak to dig through the fabric on their own, he repeats the entire process, left hand as useless as trying to carve meat with a spoon, pawing lame and limp at the jeans like a dog scratching at a door.

It’s an embarrassingly painful pantomime, and within a few minutes of fruitless trying he’s about ready to sob in frustration.

Beside him, Charles is frowning. He sits reluctantly still, as if attempting to blend in with the wagon behind them, unwilling to act without Arthur’s consent. “May I help?”

“No.”

Charles blinks, confused. The crease between his eyebrows deepens, then disappears. “It’ll be easier on you-”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Don’t want help.”

Jaw clenched, Charles seems to bristle in the edge of Arthur’s vision. His lips are pressed tight together, as if it’s hard to watch Arthur’s struggle. Like it pains him to see it.

“What’s different today?” he asks, voice quieter, and again Arthur has to force himself not to give in, to keep Charles at arms’ length despite how desperately he wants to simply turn, bury himself in Charles’ chest, accept his affection even if he’s convinced himself it isn’t genuine or long to last. Nor is he worthy of it.

“Nothing,” Arthur lies.

Grunting in effort, he manages to jerk one foot through the jeans leg, and hauls the waistband up with one hand, only succeeding in lifting one half up to his knee. Which promptly falls back to the floor as soon as he lets go to lift the other leg into its own hole. “God _damnit_. Fuckin’ useless piece of shit-”

“Arthur-”

“ _No_ ,” Arthur snaps, far too sharp.

Their eyes meet, two circling animals, and Charles slowly, reluctantly backs down, cut by the harshness in the gaze, the anger in him, an eddy of insecurity swirling like a whirlpool. Arthur looks away again, scowling at his mangled jeans and worthless body, at Charles’ upset expression, the further embarrassment that comes as his thighs start to shake with the continued effort. Incapable of even putting pants on. It might be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.

What Charles must think of him, Arthur can’t bring himself to imagine.

“I want to help.”

Charles’ voice wrenches. A heartbreaking sound, like the mourning howl of a wolf who has lost a mate. And Arthur has to stomach the cloying dread that he has caused it.

“I don’t… Don’t want your-” Hanging his head, Arthur’s voice falls to a whisper. Of course he wants Charles’ help. He only wants Charles’ help. “I don’t want help. I can’t-”

“...Can’t?”

“I can’t keep needin’ your- I _can’t_ keep- Better I do it alone.”

In his peripheral vision, he can see Charles look away from him, dropping his gaze like a stone sinks. The black curtain of his hair falls across his face, and for a few moments he doesn’t bother retucking it behind his ear, staring straight ahead.

Forcing himself not to turn to him, Arthur grits his teeth, feeling his eyes burn. “I gotta b-be better. You ain’t always...gonna be here to fix me.”

Lips twisting with an unconvincing huff, he tries to lessen every word with humour, as he often does, pretend it’s all meaningless, a throwaway comment, insignificant in the scheme of things. But the knot wobbles in his voice, threatening to break, split open the carefully constructed tangle of emotion he’s trying valiantly to shove aside.

Arthur has never deserved Charles. Perhaps at last Charles will see him for what he truly is, and give up on him.

“I-I don’t-”

Don’t want to keep hurting you, keep burdening you. Don’t want to see the day when you get tired of me. When you leave. Because there are a thousand men more deserving. A thousand women too. Better if it’s done sooner rather than drawing it out. Finally ripping off a bandage.

“I don’t w-want your help no more.”

Charles slowly tucks his hair back behind his ear. In Arthur’s flicked sidelong gaze, he can see the hard lines of his profile, the set of his jaw, how he lifts his chin from his chest and an odd blankness comes over his face, like a decision has been made. Such deftly constructed features, chipped from earthen marble, and with lips Arthur aches to fall into, eyes he longs to beg forgiveness from, plead for Charles’ understanding in this overwhelming mess of anxiety even Arthur himself can’t make sense of. He looks away again.

“Better if I’m...alone,” Arthur whispers, barely mustering the energy to keep up the lie.

If Charles notices, sees through him, as he so often does, he makes no sign. No gentle smile comes, no soft comment, the sincerity Arthur adores in him uncharacteristically and deafeningly silent. And Arthur takes that as acceptance, a sign that Charles has taken the chance offered, and will detach himself with the least discomfort, free of Arthur’s spreading rot.

He deserves to be free of him. Who could ever love a man they’ve seen vomit into a bucket? A crippled old tramp who can barely walk, barely button his underwear, barely bathe or wash himself? Barely sleep through a night without the most demeaning, childish terror, throwing him into fits of hysteria the likes of which greater men would have been swiftly incarcerated for, hidden away in some dank sanatorium with the other broken minds.

How can he justify forcing Charles to stay anywhere near _that_? When he knows in himself that no one, not even as good a man as Charles, could ever love as bad and as tainted a man as him. No one ever has before. No one has ever stayed before. 

He was a fool to hope that maybe with Charles, he could be found worthy of someone else’s love.

When Charles speaks, his voice is quiet, with a hard edge, the sort of voice he uses to speak to strangers. “If you want me to go, I will,” he says, and Arthur digs his incisors into his bottom lip, sharp pain to keep it from trembling.

“I…-”

I don’t want you to go.

“Go,” Arthur whispers. “Please.”

The jaw muscle in Charles’ cheek tightens, and he stands up. As he moves towards the edge of the wagon’s small canopy, he hesitates, and turns as if intending to look back. His body only half completes the movement, and he stands both sunlit and in shadow at once, on the line between the risen sun and the shade around the cot. “I have an errand to run in Rhodes. If you nee-”

He presses his lips together. “I’ll...be back later.”

He leaves, and Arthur is, at once, alone again.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles has known many wonders in his life, but nothing quite like Arthur. Nothing like how he feels just being with him, sharing his space, seeing the sun smile on him. Knowing that he loves him, and knowing even wordlessly, that he is loved in return.  
> If only he could see himself in Charles’ eyes. He’d see he _shines_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we've got some nsfw stuff in this part! just a heads up!

_Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars;_

 

Charles tries to be a rational man. Rationality has saved his life plenty of times more than pre-emptive or impulsive judgement. He tries to think, to understand, and act once the situation is measured. Only then can the best course be found.

As a shotgun to the face of a poacher had shown, many weeks ago, rationality is sometimes drowned out by the impetuous yelling of a very irrational force called emotion, so fierce and loud it demands action before his head can offer any solutions that have more than one syllable. ‘Rationality’ has five, so it’s not always the first item on the list.

He walks away from the wagon, and the first he knows is a buzzing in the space where his brain should be, a heavy and grating dread, as if something has caught in the machinery, whirring awkwardly between the gears. The camp lounges green and lively around him, the few early risers talkative against the background babble of summer, of insects and birds, water and earth. Cain barks at bold gulls who are pecking eagerly at specks of food along his stretch of beach, splashing in the shallows to chase them and their wading cousins. Miss Tilly and Mary-Beth are sharing a joke over their coffee, and one of the geldings whinnies, calling to a friend as Kieran diligently breaks up a bale of new hay for the herd. 

Charles hears none of it.

Taima is grazing with the other mares, strewing their own bale through the sweet grass as they mill happily amongst each other, and after dressing beside his empty bedroll - Bill blessedly snoring and Hosea looking to be dozing by the main fire - Charles heads to greet her, silent, ensuring she’s well before he fetches her saddle, bridle looped over his shoulder. He readies her for riding, and her earnest excitement to be working after her very quiet few weeks - even more enthusiastic than she is to claim more mouthfuls of hay for herself - is almost enough to stop the white noise in his head, stirring something positive amidst the fog of static.

Rationality tells him that after the previous night, Arthur is hurt. He’s suffering, and the vicious loathing in him, the entity of doubt and far too much loss that lurks in his bones and wears his skin, digs its claws into his every achievement, every positive feeling he has, and crushes them - it has told him his suffering is his own fault. Has fabricated the idea that he isn’t worth help, surely spinning some cruelty about Arthur’s injuries and how they burden Charles, choking him into silence when Arthur knows he can always depend on Charles’ trust and understanding.

Charles can see that being true. Rationally.

On the other hand, the less reasonable hand, Charles has been afraid such a moment would come. When Arthur no longer wished to share a space with him, grew to resent his fumbling attempts at care, at friendship. And it’s certain, Charles has never truly had a friend. Perhaps he is just horrifically bad at it, and has finally driven Arthur away. Perhaps the ordeal did indeed change Arthur, and his heart with it, showed him truths about his life that meant...Charles could no longer be a part of it. Perhaps the night’s barren, brutal honesty has shown Charles’ failings to his eyes.

Compared to Arthur, who is he? A nobody, a drifter, an outcast. He’s never belonged anywhere, never fit into the communal family existence that means so much to Arthur. They haven’t talked about it, but Charles knows there was at least one woman in Arthur’s life once, and if the gossip is true, he asked her to be his wife, many years ago. A picture of her stood beside Arthur’s bed when they first met, though Charles hasn’t seen it in a long while.

He isn’t her. Will never be the wishful fulfillment of that once-dreamt dream. The safety and security of living within established expectations and societal rules, that Arthur perhaps sought in her, isn’t something Charles can swear to provide, as much as he might wish to. There might never be a picket fence for them, a happy ending.

What about him could Arthur ever see as desirable? There’s nothing he has that Arthur could find attractive or appealing, no softness or stability. No promise of a child, of marriage, of a safe and managed home that a more traditional relationship might be able to provide. He has nothing to offer except loneliness, ostracism, cultural diaspora. The threat of facing lifelong prejudice, the feeling of never having fit in anywhere, the clumsy fumbling of inexperience well into middle age. What alluring traits to have in a companion, man or woman.

They’ve only known each other for the better part of a year. Charles has never kept a friend at all, let alone for that long. How could he hope to keep something far deeper?

People have never held much appeal to Charles. It often seems that the world would be a far kinder place if not for the people living in it, if not for mankind’s greed and cruelty, and that removing himself from a society that has no space for someone like him was the only way to survive that world. Arthur is the first person he has met since leaving his father that has challenged that, proved that there is good in the least likely places, that there are exceptions to every rule, and more shades between white and black than ever imagined.

He’s a man unlike any other Charles has known. 

When he looks at Arthur, he sees the most noble and beautiful creature, an old enduring soul of a time fast fading, whose vigilance and loyalty belie his sensitivity, a gentle wonder and creativity he keeps close to his chest. Conflict and collage, contrasting colours; he is freedom locked in irons, he is striving forwards never having been allowed to stop, and always searching for greener pasture - rarely for himself, but for the others of his flock. Like a stag, the crowned king of his grassland, his plains and meadows, summer antlers furred with gold to match the heart deep in his breast. And Charles has come to adore him, to long to see the world with Arthur’s light shining into what has only ever seemed like darkness, with the belonging he could never find no matter how far away he ran. With the best friend he’s ever had.

Perhaps he was a fool for starting to wonder if that belonging could be found within a person, not a place. For thinking a man like Arthur could feel the same way for a man like him.

“Mister Smith!”

Charles’ head snaps up, cold prickle on the back of his neck. 

“I was hopin’ to catch you,” Dutch calls, approaching the hitching post where Charles stands beside Taima, silently hoping he was referring to some other ‘Mr Smith’. No such luck. He pulls down Taima’s stirrup, checking the buckle, and circles her to do the same on the other side.

“Good morning, Dutch,” Charles replies, forced politeness pushing past the tight apprehension in his voice.

“Headin’ out, are you?”

“An order to pick up from the general store.”

“Ah, I see, I see.”

Absently stroking at his furred lip, Dutch casually leans against the hitching post, Taima backing off a step to retain some amount of her own personal space. “None of uh… Arthur’s _ablutions_ need takin’ care of?”

“Not right now,” Charles says, and meets Dutch’s eyes, devoid of any emotion, any hint Dutch could use as an advantage.

“That’s good. Real good. And may I say, you have been doing a fantastic job. Truly commendable.”

“He would do the same for any of us.”

“Now ain’t that the truth?” Dutch says, head tilted like a predatory bird.

He looks skyward for a moment, contemplating, and it strikes Charles, not for the first time, how superficial everything Dutch does and says appears to be. It’s like watching a theatre production. Every gesture, every facial expression, every emphasis or placed stress, seems somehow rehearsed, chosen specifically for desired effect.

“Ain’t that the truth,” he says again. “He’s a loyal one, our Arthur. Never asks too many questions, never...stirs the pot. A simple boy in that way, never gets too big for his britches.”

Charles doesn’t blink.

“He _understands_ our little family. You know I known him since he was fifteen?”

“He mentioned it.”

“Fifteen years old! A brat mind you, but he understood real quick what we could be together. Him and Hosea and I. Understood the importance of...havin’ each other, workin’ for the same goal.”

Picking himself up from the hitching post, Dutch paces the few feet along its length, hands conjuring his words. Silent, Charles watches, one hand gently resting on Taima’s shoulder, keeping himself steady as much as her. “You see, son, this family we built… It’s like a great machine. Like clockwork. Only functions when all the parts are moving in the right direction, workin’ together.”

“If one of them parts was to act...out of line with the others, perhaps act contrary to the overall motion, that’d adversely affect the whole. You see what I’m saying?”

Ah. Charles had wondered when Dutch was going to bring it up. His ‘contrary’ actions. “I can see,” Charles replies, voice blank and inoffensive.

“Good. You’re a smart feller, Charles, I know that,” Dutch says, so falsely cheerful, head tilted as he nods.

It reminds Charles of how the caravan park outside Rhodes had been, when they’d rescued Mr Trelawny from the bounty hunters. Painted jaunty colours, as if to hide the stench of poverty beneath bright shutters and curlicue roof trim, lacquered and buffed and smiling in the baking sun, all while the windows leak and the floorboards are rotting, the infants wailing with typhus rash, the dogs near bald with mange. There is a spectacle to Dutch; a showy surface, every element carefully chosen and placed. To create a scene. A beautiful cover on a book full of nonsense.

Had he simply not seen it before? Not seen the inches of rhetoric that pad Dutch’s speeches, the eloquence that comes not from wisdom, or even intelligence, but from being supremely talented at talking utter _bullshit_.

“Now,” Dutch continues, pacing to the other side, fingers splayed as he punctuates with his hands. “I know you and Arthur have become... _close_ of late. You’re like two peas in a pod now, ain’t you?” A sharp smile. “And I don’t gotta remind you of how special he is to me. Like a son; my _own_ son. And thus...I am sure you can understand, that I would do anythin’ to keep him safe.”

“Of course.”

“Of course!”

There’s a cold chuckle, and Dutch again turns to pace a few feet in the opposite direction. His voice is practised. As if written in script.

“Sometimes those things...might not make sense to you. Sometimes I might make decisions, for the best interests of not just Arthur, but for the group as a whole, and _sometimes_ you might not agree with them. But I expect everyone here to trust that I...can see the bigger picture. To _trust_ that I _always_ act to keep this- this _family_ together.”

Charles holds his gaze. Slightly too firm.

“Those cogs in that machine, Charles! They all gotta be turnin’ the right way. If one of those cogs turned the wrong way, against the others-” He turns, face pulled up on one side like a bass with its mouth caught on a hook. Brings his hands wide, open-palmed, gesticulating. “Well, that machine would not work. And if one was _stopped_ , say perhaps by...an outside influence. Well, that would be a problem, now wouldn’t you agree?”

“Of course,” Charles says again, knowing it certainly would be a problem if he - an outside influence if there ever was one - encouraged Arthur to assert his own autonomy and ask for respect. A big problem. For Dutch.

“Good,” Dutch chirps, nodding. “Good. I am glad we understand each other.”

Dutch stares at him for a long moment, as if Charles were a persistent fly he’s ready to swat when it comes near him again, digging eyes like self-threading screws, biting through mortar. And then he chuckles, airy and wooden, turning away as if to leave, conversation having served its purpose. “Good day to you, Mister Smith.”

Just to be cynical, because this morning has so far been completely terrible, he’s already exhausted and it’s barely 9 o’clock, and he hasn’t had even a thimble full of coffee as yet, Charles refuses to be so easily dismissed. Taima paws the dry ground. Charles rubs her shoulder.

“I’m not sure the metaphor fits,” he calls to Dutch’s retreating back, and silently delights in how he stops, turning back to him with an irritable grimace, patience stretched between them like a worn piece of elastic rubber, like the silver watch chain grinning between his waistcoat pockets.

“Oh? How so?” he asks, head again inclined, eyebrow tweaked in annoyance, as if being forced to explain the known laws of thermodynamics to an infant, or teach a chicken how to fetch.

“Arthur is a human being. Has his own hopes, wants, opinions,” Charles says, absently checking the cheekpiece of Taima’s bridle, making sure the leather billet is secure in its keeper loop. She twists around to nose at his hand, and he gently rubs her dark muzzle, one of her ears remaining trained on Dutch a few feet away. “He’s no pawn. Cogs cannot choose to stop turning of their own free will. People can.”

Dutch stares back at him. His eyes narrow, chips of sharp rock. It almost makes Charles want to laugh. “Now, _Charles_ ,” Dutch says, and pauses, hands upheld. He chuckles again, an oozing sort of sound, slick and false. “In that case, let us dispense with metaphors. Let us not...beat around this proverbial bush. You’re a smart man, you know what I’m referring to, now don’t you?”

“Please, enlighten me.”

With a sharp sigh, Dutch briefly presses his finger and thumb to his eyes, taking the few steps to again stand closer to the hitching post. Irritation bristles from him, tension in his shoulders. “You recall the conversation we had some weeks ago, about Arthur’s disappearance. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear then, but...I regret you seemed to misunderstand.”

“Misunderstand?”

Dutch smiles with just his lips, so artificial as to be mocking. “I made the decision not to send a search party for Arthur at that time, and that decision was made after _much_ deliberating between Hosea and I. There was a high risk of the situation bein’ a trap by Colm, to lure me in, to cause me to act rashly on account of my bond with Arthur.”

Lie. Blatant lie.

Dutch continues, resuming his pacing. “Now as I previously mentioned, this machine, this _family_ , it only works if all its parts - all of _us_ \- are moving _together_. And it takes trust for that to happen. Trust in _me_. _Faith_ in _me_. Yet you, Charles… You set out on your own!” His hands clap together, and fall. A disappointed parent scolding their child for staying out too late. “You were _reckless_. And by being so, you put all of us here in danger, chargin’ into something...beyond your understanding.”

Charles flexes his fingers by his side. Clenches his jaw.

“Now, perhaps I was not clear,” Dutch says, tone growing waspish, irritable. “My boys, my _family_ \- I would surely lie down in my grave for each and every one of you, but all I ask- Is for trust. I ask for _faith_.”

For a second, Dutch is but a foot from Charles, and the same ferocity crackles in the air that had flared the night he’d brought Arthur home, a wolf against an alligator, far too many teeth between them. Spittle clings to Dutch’s muzzle, eyes small and sharp, and Charles stares back, a lax and hollow expression, devoid of anything but the shards of amber in his irises.

From where Charles is standing, it doesn’t sound like Dutch is asking for the deserved trust of a beloved protector, a family member. It seems more like he desires blind obedience, for his people to think less for themselves and more like cogs, only existing to turn. To turn and tick and whirr perpetually onwards. No one can demand trust. A man who tries to gain it simply by shouting it into existence, is not a man to be trusted at all. Neither is a man who doesn’t care to seek his fellows’ opinions and thoughts, instead believing his way to be the only way.

Arthur ‘never asks too many questions’.

Arthur is the most talented artist Charles has ever known, a crack shot, a kind and brilliant soul. His best friend. A man that stops his journey to talk to domestic cats sunning themselves on roadside porches, even though being within a few feet of them makes his eyes itch and his nose stream. A man that sticks his tongue out slightly when he concentrates to sketch a new plant he’s discovered, diligently looking for its proper name in his compendium of flora, and snorting when he tries to pronounce the Latin. A man with a rampant sweet tooth, who scrunches up his nose when he’s self-conscious, who can fall asleep just about anywhere, who will always go back for his hat. Making him laugh is as glorious an achievement as Charles ever knew he was capable of. And the time spent getting to know him, even just for a few months, has been the best time of Charles’ life.

But what’s important is that he ‘never asks too many questions’.

“I appreciate your independent spirit, Charles, I _do_ ,” Dutch continues, expression still and staring while his hands gesticulate like they have minds of their own, just the hitching post between them. “I _don’t_ appreciate you putting my _family_ in danger, doubtin’ me and my decisions, on account of your...preoccupation with Arthur.”

Charles’ eyes narrow, barely noticeable.

“Now I do not wish to have to do this, son. It brings me no pleasure. But I must warn you to be mindful of your attachment to him.” Voice darkening, Dutch holds Charles’ gaze, stone meeting stone. “The whole thing- It’s a distraction to both of you. Let him get back to work as he should, and I ask that you do the same. Before this... _distraction_ causes any more threat to the safety of all of us here.”

Charles’ teeth creak with how hard he clenches his jaws together.

A _distraction_. A handful of months ago, he might have been able to define his bond with Arthur as ‘a distraction’, although it wouldn’t have been true even then. Something fleeting, a passing fancy. Perhaps a quick release, a physical outlet, rough and satisfying and over as fast as it began.

Arthur has never been just a distraction. Even with his words still echoing painfully in his head, his demand that Charles go, leave him alone - he is so much more than a detour, something far deeper and more meaningful than anything Charles has experienced before. And if Arthur does truly wish to be left alone, it won’t diminish what they had, even for just a few short weeks. It will never be something forgettable.

If Dutch wishes to qualify it like that, then so be it. Let him remain ignorant, wilfully or otherwise, of how entangled their lives have become, how each thread of Arthur corresponds with a matching thread in Charles, and how tightly knotted every inch of Charles is, wrapped and woven with a deep and delirious longing for him. Let the soaring height of his feeling go unnoticed by those with the power to crush it, and let Dutch believe Charles’ first loyalty is still to the gang, still to him, and not, as it is of course, to Arthur. And Arthur alone.

How dare he claim to be putting Arthur’s wellbeing first? How dare he call Charles’ care for Arthur a threat - when all Charles wants is for Arthur to be safe and happy and _alive_. To let him know he is more than just a cog in some figurative machine, that he deserves to live freely, in whatever way he chooses, and that he is intrinsically deserving of respect, no matter how bad a person he has always been told he is.

“Forgive me, Dutch,” Charles replies, unable to help his tight-lipped smile, as simpering and empty as the one directed back at him. His eyes slink to Dutch’s neck, idly wondering how long it would take to choke him, crush the lying, manipulative, tyrannical _rot_ from his voicebox.

“I apologise for the misunderstanding.”

The nonexistent misunderstanding.

“Arthur is my friend, true. In my concern for him, I...see I overstepped.”

By refusing to do nothing, refusing to allow Arthur to die just to cover up Dutch’s incompetence.

“I fear I’m not so fluent in the subtleties of social interaction with a...learned man, such as yourself.”

Dutch chuckles again, briefly dropping his gaze before returning it to Charles’ face. The sunlight seems to drip from his hair, white blocks of reflected light amidst the black, making it almost appear painted on, lacquered and unnatural. “I understand. No harm done,” he says, features shifting into ‘jovial’ as if a button has been pushed. He turns to leave again, all sharpness gone from his voice, redirected into his usual arrogant preen, a cockerel grooming its tail feathers.

Chuckling warmly, as if all they have shared is a friendly joke between peers, Dutch takes a few steps from the hitching post. “And never fear, my friend!” he calls, turning briefly to look back at Charles, arms outstretched as if addressing a great audience. He pauses there, a preacher at his pulpit. “You will learn.”

Taima huffs as Dutch finally walks away, digging the dirt with one hoof. Impatient to get going. Watching Dutch cross the camp, Charles waits until the black of his waistcoat has retreated out of his sight before turning to his mare, unhitching her reins from the post ready to mount. Ready to escape. Somehow the lakeward breeze seems to have lost its relieving chill, stifled in the heat from the fast-rising sun.

There’s little victory in clashing with Dutch, not with his head still swimming with Arthur’s abject refusals, the way his voice had hardened when he’d said the word ‘go’, and as he rides towards the treeline his mind wanders back to the battle between emotion and logic, unsure whether his anger with Dutch is justified, whether he does have the right to feel so defensive, or whether he is in fact overreacting, painting Dutch in an unfair light to make himself feel better. Should he break down in tears, leave Clemens Point and not look back, drown the hurt inside him with drink or some other violent delight; or should he go back, speak plainly to Arthur and insist they talk it through.

Does he truly want Charles to leave? Was it foolish to ever hope they could continue where they’d left off before?

Yet he feels more certain of one thing, at least.

The cedars and post oaks form a verdant jungle at the western entrance to the Point, undergrowth a thick web of grasses and ferns, philodendrons and nettles. Winged sumac shrubs are in flower amidst dwarf shin-oaks, and butterflies dance from plant to plant in the dappled shade, birds rustling in the canopy with the squirrels, escaping into the branches as Taima trots through.

Even if Arthur genuinely does want him gone from his life, want to end their budding romance before it truly could begin, and it isn’t a self-loathing consequence of too much vulnerability, too much needing support when he’s been told all his life that he is undeserving of it. Even then, even if he is never blessed to hear Arthur’s laugh again, never meant to share his sleep with him again, never certain of what they could have had together or how beautiful life could have been with Arthur walking his own path by his side; he’ll accept whatever Arthur wants. Whatever Arthur’s heart says.

But if that is to be, at least Charles is sure of how he feels. Surer than he has ever felt. A fact he’s known to be true for a long while now.

Charles is completely, irrevocably in love with him.

 

The morning creeps slowly to a bright, hot height.

Around Clemens Point, the hours are spent along the shoreline, clinging to patches of shade from which to enjoy the fair weather. Fresh fruit is a rare luxury for breakfast; sugar apples and local peaches bought in the previous day, for once not confined to a can, and even Jack partakes in the seasonal bounty, eating something other than candy without any protest.

Arthur finds little to enjoy.

He supposes it’s normal now. He is the dark cloud over all of them, a lurking, moth-eaten ghost, a persistent reminder of something nobody else wants to remember.

Around lunchtime, he had ventured from his wagon. Having talked himself into a frenetic burst of hollow confidence, watched by too many eyes sitting uselessly in bed, he’d managed to amble his way down to the beach, bare feet prickling with the sun-baked sand, and sat for a while on the jetty. With a sliver of soap, he’d crudely washed his hair, scrubbed at his beard, now far too long to be called stubble, a scruffy layer of unkempt fur, like an animal whose winter coat has left him shaggy and overgrown, poorly moulted and still clinging through the summer.

It hadn’t helped much.

The reflection of his own face in the water had swum beneath his submerged feet, swirling sickly with the ripples in the surface, and Arthur had remembered how the moon had shone the night they’d found the Point, how he and Charles had sat together on that very pier. Their hands had brushed.

Weeks of building, of blossoming, of something dizzying and wonderful and new - and Arthur has destroyed it with a few words. Words he didn’t truly mean in the first place.

He’d stayed in bed after that.

After a nap, another bout of guilt-induced false confidence - unhelped by Micah’s grotesquely cheerful passing greeting that it was “about time he showed his face, ugly though it is” - has him reaching for the journal on the bedside table, still untouched since the day he’d reread the entries the O’Driscolls had mocked. Several deep breaths, and he’d managed to open it, pages predictably falling to sketches of Charles.

They aren’t quite accurate enough to truly do him justice, in Arthur’s opinion, if a two dimensional pencil drawing could ever do Charles’ beauty and breadth of being justice. He needs more practice, more patience, more skill than one lifetime could give him. But they comfort all the same.

He spends the afternoon flicking through the pages, cautiously reading passages the O’Driscoll boys had laughed at, had taken and fashioned into a weapon of degradation, of humiliation. A part of him hopes that if he knows the traumatic memories are there, they might not take him by surprise.

‘Charles and I went hunting again today. He never ceases to amaze and inspire me. Everything he does is with poise, everything he says is measured, like every word is special. His patience is limitless. He’s taught me things no man of my age should be just now learning at this time of his life. But when he speaks, when he acts, it’s like a new world is revealed to me, and I cannot do anything but listen. I want to know him. I want to be special to him, if ever a man such as me could be special to a man such as Charles.’

It’s difficult. Draining. But a reassurance too; and the part of him that shuns affection, panics at the mere prospect of another person caring about him, that part falls silent as he reads through his own writing, finding every feeling described in written words resurfacing within him instantly, drowning out the fear and guilt he has felt so keenly in the previous weeks. Even the lurking threat of the O’Driscolls’ laughter, ever present, seems somehow subdued.

‘I kissed Charles. These feelings I’ve been having - I ain’t sure I know how to describe them, because I never felt anything like it before. After the cornfield, and Caliga Hall, we were sitting together, me half-dead and him like everything good and beautiful in the world wrapped up in one.’

Charles had looked at him then, and Arthur can still see it in his memory - as if Charles was having a private audience with an angel, a look of awe and adoration, of desire, longing, hope, trepidation, joy.

He’d looked at him like he loved him.

‘I want Charles like I never wanted nothing. I want _all_ of him. Imagining it - being with him, physical like - raises a passion in me I can’t even describe. It’s embarrassing thinking it, let alone writing it down. Yet I can’t deny it no more, again Hell take me. And what’s better - or worse, I can’t tell - I think Charles wants the same too. Wants me. Old, beat-up, ugly sonofabitch me.’

It doesn’t feel disingenuous, reading it back. He had honestly thought Charles wanted the same. Charles had told him so, a fair few times, hadn’t he?

That morning they’d spent at Ringneck Creek, tracking the buck through the forest. Charles’ body pressed against his as intensely as a second skin, a patient yearning in him as he adjusted Arthur’s grip, kept his hips square. They’d kissed then too, wanted so much more, and Arthur had felt Charles’ own need for him, seen the heavy aching in his eyes, the desperate desire to loaf all day with him in the grass, lie with him and watch the world, as long as he could do it with Arthur beside him.

And it isn’t a feeling or expression Arthur hasn’t experienced since his abduction. He sees it in Charles often, in fact. Is gifted with it in the mornings, waking in Charles’ offensively thick arms, wrapped tight around him. Finds it in the darkness after nightmares, when he’s cold from sweat and mute in resurfacing memory, when Charles’ hands hold his, when he whispers that everything will be alright.

He saw it in him when his eyes watered from vomiting and Charles’ gentle fingers brushed his damp hair from his forehead, when he’d snapped in irritation and only found soft understanding in reply, when he’d sobbed with pain and flinched from his touch, debased himself, embarrassed himself, soiled himself in every conceivable way. When he had taken his first step, having to relearn how to move his own body, or the night he had tried to get out of bed to see Magpie and failed so very badly, when Charles had held him and kissed him, only when Arthur had given his permission.

Charles only ever looks at him with tender, tumultuous affection, with admiration, with respect, with pride.

No one could do so much simply out of guilt. Surely. No one could show that endless kindness, that much patience and insight, unless they cared so deeply that it never even occurred to them not to. It was never an option not to provide help when help is needed.

Arthur stops then, and feels cold.

‘It stormed something fierce today, fork lightning across the lake like I ain’t seen in years. If it’s some heavenly way of telling us we should not have robbed that bank in Valentine, well, it was Miss Karen’s idea. Not much work could be done, so Charles and I spent a fair while beneath the cover of the wagon for to avoid some of the rain. He read to me to pass the time - as foolish as I am aware that sounds - from that book I have a fondness for, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Once, he told me to remember not to get so lost in my head that I cannot find my way back out, like Alice down her rabbit hole. I think he is surely the wisest man I have ever known.’

Heartbeat noticeable, hammering insistently in his head as if vying for his attention, Arthur looks up from the journal in his lap, and knows that is exactly what he has done. Become so lost in his head that the world around him has turned itself upside down. Rabbits are wearing pocket watches, the caterpillars are smoking hookah, and there’s a dormouse in the teapot singing nursery rhymes.

He has let his self-loathing show him for a fool. Again. And he has driven Charles away from him, rejected his kindness like an ingrate. 

He must talk to him. If indeed Charles is glad to be free of his nonsense, then he’ll accept it, respect Charles’ own decision. But if it’s the opposite-

“Arthur Morgan, you idiot fool,” he mumbles, and clambers out of bed, venturing out to see if Charles has yet returned from Rhodes.

 

Evening slinks in. Like a purring cat lounges on a windowsill. A warm golden haze settles around Clemens Point, light spilling out over the lake from the west as the sun heads towards the horizon, a cascade of coloured ripples lapping at the shoreline. The shadows grow long, and Pearson’s supper is enjoyed along the beach, beneath the oak tree, the heat dispersing enough that it’s no longer unbearable to sit in the waning sunlight and congregate around the campfire.

July will end soon enough, but summer won’t, and the climate this far south is bound to only bring further heat. So the cooler evenings are a gift while they last, a short relief between the sticky afternoons and blinking firefly nights.

Lacking sleep after the previous night’s fiasco, Arthur naps again as afternoon winds down, having been waiting for Charles’ return, and wakes to see Taima back amongst the group of mares, breath hitching as he spots her dark grey head. Magpie is noticeable too, a little closer to the herd than she had been before, grazing on the outskirts of the camp. She’s being brave.

Arthur drags a hand through his hair, even scruffier than usual since he’d slept on it when it was still damp, now sticking out awkwardly around his crown, like straw poking through the hessian sack head of a scarecrow. Looking handsome has never been a strong point of his. But he can at least try to be brave. For Magpie, if nothing else.

Charles isn’t obvious about the camp, not crowded around the campfire eating the evening meal, not along the beach or playing cards around the poker table. He isn’t often one for joining in with the others’ frivolities, preferring instead to find his own quiet space, or volunteering for whatever chores haven’t yet been done. 

As he had been when Arthur first shared a true conversation with him, the eve of Sean’s return party after they’d sprung him from those bounty hunters. Taking on so much without recognition or reward.

Sighing, feeling a prickle of guilt at the back of his neck, Arthur pulls his boots on without too much trouble, and ventures out into the orange light, only stumbling slightly in the uneven meadow grass.

Trelawny is reading beside the medicine wagon, and he waves politely as Arthur ambles slowly closer, as lightly dressed in a simple shirt and pressed trousers as Arthur’s ever seen him, except perhaps for that day in the cornfield. He looks positively human. Hardly as nerve-racking to approach as Arthur’s racing heartbeat would suggest.

“Evenin’ Mister Trelawny,” Arthur says, pausing by the wagon to catch his breath, leaning for a moment on the awning post.

“Arthur! A good evening to you too, dear boy,” Trelawny replies, cheerful, miming doffing his hat to him, though he isn’t wearing one. “You are looking in much finer fettle, I must say! Good to see, my boy, good to see.”

“Ah, well. I been well looked after.”

“It shows, my dear,” Trelawny says, a genuine smile beneath his curled moustache.

He doesn’t seem to shy away from looking at Arthur, never lingering too long on the sweating patch of his exposed chest, the bulk of the bandaging beneath his union suit’s left side. The pallid unshaven face, deep circles beneath his eyes; Trelawny doesn’t look at him like he’s a poor wax figure of the man he once was, or a badly painted portrait. Perhaps that fear was just another trick of his mind, something else conjured by his anxiety. It’s hard to tell.

Still, Arthur only infrequently meets his gaze, shuffling his weight from foot to painful foot, legs aching. “I, uh-” He clears his throat. “You seen Charles? He went out earlier, I-”

“I have. He passed by not a short while ago. ‘Taking a walk’, said he.”

Thumb secure in his book to keep his page, he gestures towards the north where the forest borders the Point, a green oak curtain from the lake shore up to Clemens Cove, tracing the shoreline, its crags and curves. Charles is often found over that way, looking out toward the lake, sharing a cigarette with Arthur as the day fades. A few times, he had played his harmonica to Arthur’s enraptured smile, and stopped only when the crickets began to buzz along in the surrounding grass, lying together to watch the stars appear instead.

“Thanks,” Arthur says, and catches Trelawny’s eyes to grant him a brief smile, pushing away from the post to stand and start walking again.

“Not a problem,” Trelawny replies, and watches Arthur’s limping movement as he continues on, traversing the dry ditch around the clearing with some difficulty. “Take it easy, dear boy! If I can assist, do shout!”

Waving to show he’s heard, Arthur traipses on through thick bluestem and buffalograss, picking a path through the briars, tangled like unspun wool, and Trelawny returns to his book, watching the red of his union suit disappear beyond the far treeline.

It’s an exhausting walk, though it really isn’t very far. He takes another moment to recover some energy as he enters the boundary woods, light at once blotted by the canopy of trees. No sound from the camp reaches him as he carries on, and it’s a strangely comforting quiet, surrounded only by nature on all sides, a lush blanket to muffle the wider world, a bastion of wilderness. The lake stretches to the west, a golden expanse of sparkling colour, and in the other directions all is green, a carpet of undergrowth rustling with rabbits, with squirrels and pecking prairie chickens, fluttered wings of songbirds plucking insects from the sumac flowers.

It doesn’t take him long to come across a footprint, and he smiles to himself despite the aching in his entire body, the exhaustion that still pulls him back to bed, saps his strength. Charles had taught him to track, to notice signs he never would have before. A barely-there boot impression mars the rich red earth, damp with the humidity beneath the trees, protected from the sun’s drying gaze, and Arthur is certain it belongs to Charles’ foot from the size, the smooth sole of his well-worn boots, the lightness in the step from years of needing to cover his tracks, needing to be undetected lest it save his life.

Before Charles, there was much he didn’t notice about the world. Or perhaps, had given up trying to see.

A short walk further, and the air stirs ahead of him, fogged with a small cloud from behind a tree trunk. Smoke drifts lazily upward. He instantly smells the tobacco - a rare indulgence for both of them, though he’s sure it can’t do much for his health no matter what the advertisements claim - and stops, hesitating before approaching.

He doesn’t have a plan.

Should he have thought about what to say? Perhaps open with an apology, try to explain himself. Find some way to describe his feelings, his fears, how they often overwhelm his ability to think rationally, because truthfully he has no experience of this kind of relationship, something so different and thrilling and satisfying in a way he can’t explain. He knows he’s woefully ill-equipped to handle it, to be any kind of companion to Charles - and perhaps he ought to apologise again, just for good measure - but he so desperately wants to try, if only he could be certain that’s what Charles wants too.

Or else he could just stumble pathetically over his words until Charles loses what little patience he likely has left and-

“You don’t have to just stand there.”

Charles’ head appears, peering around the trunk of the tree he’s sitting against, and for a second Arthur contemplates running. Turning around and jogging all the way back to his bed as fast as his wobbling legs will carry him. And try not to fall over in the process.

“Oh. Ha…” He shifts his weight. Drags his fingers through his straw bale hair. “Sorry. I- If you- I was just... I-I can leave if you- Oh God _damnit_ , stop rambling, you fool-”

There’s a huffing noise from the tree, and a plume of smoke rises. “Come and sit down,” Charles says, out of Arthur’s sight.

“Right,” Arthur mumbles, and takes a breath. “Okay. Sure.”

Careful, Arthur makes his way towards the tree, skirting around thick roots protruding from the earth, crowded with ferns and silvery deadnettles, dark leaves of tangled greenery happy to live in the blackjack’s shadow. It must be hundreds of years old, and Charles looks perfectly comfortable sitting against its trunk, overlooking the lake some distance out, like they share the same ancient soul.

He looks up as Arthur hesitates again, and meets his eyes. There’s no anger there that Arthur can identify, and so he steps closer, breathing deeply as he settles by Charles’ side, clumsily manoeuvring his shaking weight to sit heavily on the ground. Wincing, he lets himself relax.

“You good?”

“Mhm. Sure. Thanks,” he says, and then sighs, shutting his eyes. “No. Not really. Not good at all.”

“Me neither,” Charles says.

“I...I think- I-”

Eyes still shut, Arthur breathes again, head briefly leant back against the tree trunk. Tobacco smoke swirls in the air. “Shit, can I share?” he asks, and picks up his head to gesture at Charles’ cigarette, glowing between his fingers, hand propped on his knee.

Charles glances down at it. Then offers Arthur the cigarette, watching as he takes it in two fingers and inhales, long and deep, shoulders sagging in some small relief before he hands it back. “Mm…”

Exhale thick with smoke, Arthur hums, and when he opens his eyes he finds Charles’ staring back at him, unable to tell if he’s suddenly closer to him, or if he had just sat down with barely a foot between them. For a moment, he holds the gaze, motionless, breath grey around his mouth, and then wets his lips, dry from the smoke, noticing the quick flick of Charles’ eyes, drawn to the brief movement of his tongue.

“Been...a while,” he murmurs, voice a deep rumble, and even he is unsure whether he’d meant the cigarette or something else entirely.

Charles answers with his own agreeing hum, seemingly forgetting to turn back towards the lake. He remains fixed on Arthur, taking back the cigarette and bringing to his own lips, eyelids heavy as he inhales.

It seems to take an age for him to breathe out, holding the acrid taste in his mouth as Arthur finds himself unable to look away, waiting for the hiss of smoke, the billow spilling from his nose, his lips. When it comes, he’s leaning closer, drinking the exhaled smoke for his own, sharing the taste of tobacco secondhand.

Eyes half-lidded, Charles loses himself in the easy relaxation on Arthur’s face, the slight colour in his cheeks, almost glowing compared to how he looked not so long ago, pale with his sickness, gaunt and ill. Now his beard somehow only adds to his charm, scruffy as it is, skin having lost its mottled tinge, the cut above his eyebrow now no more than a pink scar. He still looks wan, tired, but the improvement is vast, and precious.

It isn’t what he treasures most though.

“Your eyes,” he murmurs, low and thick. Arthur blinks at him, and Charles can’t help his minute smile, lips closed. “Your eyes are blue again.”

Huffing, Arthur smiles in return, looking away for a moment, leaning against the tree as Charles does the same, turning his head back to the setting sun. It’s a beautiful sight; Charles’ profile shining against the last remnants of blue that cling to the horizon, fast blurring into shades of orange and pink, strewn with gilt clouds. What about him isn’t beautiful?

Now, what had he wanted to say?

“I- ...This morning,” Arthur says, frowning, words already struggling to present themselves. “I’m… I’m sorry. I-I know it don’t make it better, but I wanna...explain.”

“Okay.”

“Try. Anyway,” he adds, and covers the swelling agitation with an uneasy chuckle.

He takes a breath. This is important. Charles deserves an explanation, even if it’s difficult to put into words. “I-I just- I been thinkin’ about it for a while. And it’s been...tearing everythin’ up inside my head. Not knowin’ the answer’s been a special kinda hell, playin’ tricks in my mind, freakin’ me out, you know how I get.”

Still looking out over the lake, Charles doesn’t give much obvious indication that he’s listening, though Arthur knows he is. Can tell he is. Disengaging the part of him that has to look receptive to conversation serves as a defence mechanism, he knows that well enough, pretending to seem distant even when you’re listening intently. Plus it takes the weight of his attention away from Arthur, letting him speak more freely without having to contend with the extra burden of feeling _seen_.

“I-I guess… With last night especially, a-and...everythin’ that’s happened… I been struggling with it and I know I shoulda just talked to you- I shoulda just asked the question and made it clear and it wouldn’t’ve been half as much worryin’. I know. I’m… I’m a fool, I always been a fool. You know that.”

Glancing toward him just for a moment, dark eyes slinking across the small space between them, Charles is content to let him talk, taking another drag of his cigarette to quell the nervous flutter in his hands. Whatever has been bothering Arthur has been doing so for a while by the sounds of it. It’s better out in the open, whatever it is.

“I never known no one like you,” Arthur murmurs, quieter, and looks down at the grass beneath him as if he’ll find a script there, some way to explain his thoughts, to apologise properly. “I never...had nothin’ like this. Never wanted _nothin’_ like I- I want- And I don’t...wanna lose it, but-”

“But?”

Their eyes meet again. Arthur’s swim with poorly concealed fear, eyebrows downturned, almost the same expression as pain. Charles’ follow at the sight, crease between his brows. “I know I- Well, I ain’t much,” he says, quieter still, voice losing its strength, buried under a layer of gravel. “Even less now. And you’ve seen... _much_ more of me than...than I wanted you to have to see. All the extra ugly bits, the… The _mess_ I make. You done so much more than anyone else would, and- I don’t want you to f-feel-”

Gentle, Charles leans across, and takes Arthur’s hand, as easy as breathing, as if it’s the most natural instinct. He holds it safely in his own, a silent reassurance, loosening the stop in Arthur’s throat, the snatched way he takes his breaths, wound tight with tension.

At once, Arthur sighs, eyes falling shut for a second. His chest relaxes, lungs able to draw a proper amount of air, dressing stretched tight over his breast as he takes a deep and steadying breath. “If...If you don’t...wanna do this no more, I- It’s too much for anyone to have to do, I know that, and I been takin’ advantage of your kindness for so long, I just- I don’t know where we _are_.” He opens his eyes, desperate, searching for the solid foundation of Charles’ steady gaze.

“I need to know. If you still- A-And I understand if not ‘cause- _Look_ at me. You seen parts of me... _no one_ should have to and I’m so- _Goddamn_ ashamed of that, I ain’t surprised if you don’t wanna see no more of it. But I gotta know. Else I just keep worryin’ and inventin’ my own truths, twisting everythin’ up-”

When Arthur looks up, Charles is staring at him as if he’s grown another head. “What?” he asks, deep voice barely there, expression frozen in some inexplicable disbelief. Arthur’s distress ratchets up another notch, sure he’s making everything worse.

“I- _Damnit_ , Charles, if- If you wanna go back to just...friends, or _strangers_ , or if you don’t wanna know me at all no more, pretend there was never nothin’ between us- I understand, and I don’t blame you, but- Please, _God_ , tell me now, if that’s the case, ‘cause I been thinkin’ it for a while, convincing myself it’s all over for us ‘cause of all this shit, and I don’t wanna keep you trapped dealin’ with me outta some kinda guilt-”

“ _Guilt_?” Charles snaps, in horror more than anger. He gapes at Arthur, eyes wide. “You- You think I’m doing this because I feel _guilty_?”

“Well-”

Arthur stares back at him, just as confused by his reaction as Charles is by the implication. He blinks, lost. “I- No one would do what you done for me lately. No one’s ever...shown me that kinda care,” he says, gesturing with his right hand, fingers restless. “I don’t want you to f-feel like you...gotta stick around if you don’t want to, because- Shit, I’m- I’m _nothin’_ but a burden on you, I’m useless without you- Can’t wash, can’t sleep, can’t piss, can’t dress my own damn self-”

“Because you got _hurt_!” Charles says, stricken. “You were _tortured_ -”

“Ain’t no one looks at me the same! You saw ‘em last night! Whisperin’ a-and laughin’ and- I can’t even blame them! I’m a joke, I-I can’t even sleep one night without you moppin’ up my mess like you’re some...kinda nursemaid! Embarrassin’ myself, humiliating myself, forcing you into seein’ me in situations I never want you to have to see. I weren’t much before, but now- Now I-”

His voice breaks, and Arthur drops his gaze lest it well over, staring pointedly at the ground as he swallows, taking a shaking breath before he can speak again, voice falling limply back into his chest from where it had risen. “You’re the _best_ thing in my life. You’re what’s made survivin’ this whole mess worth it. I feel… I feel so- So _strong_ for you, I can’t even describe it. I never felt nothin’ like it before.”

Frowning, a broken, contorted expression like the fabric of his face has been scrunched into a ball, blinking fast with the lurking threat of tears, Arthur glances up again, a brief, pale smile flashing over his lips as he meets Charles’ eyes. “You- You make the world look like- Like before, I was only seein’ it in grey, or black and white. Now there’s so much _colour_.”

He shakes his head, and looks at Charles’ hand, still in his own, his left fingers cold and tingling. “Like the whole world’s been painted over. Just from knowin’ you. Just from- From sharin’ it with you.”

Staring from beside him, Charles manages to squeeze his hand, lost for all words. His lips are parted, as if the potential of speech has been stolen from him, snatched from the tip of his tongue, and even breathing is an afterthought, caught in Arthur’s eyes, in his fragile, devastating honesty.

“I don’t wanna lose you,” Arthur whispers, and immediately tries to cover his emotion with a watery smile, huffing an empty laugh. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t never wanna sleep without you again. But- But if you’d rather… If you don’t feel the same no more, I understand. Please just...let me know. Before I...embarrass myself more than I already have.”

For a long moment, no sound reaches either of them. The blackjack oaks are still, butterflies tiptoeing across nettle leaves, the tiny curled fronds of the umbrella ferns whispering together like the barest brush of fingers.

Charles stares.

All of this, _all of it_ , and Arthur thinks Charles no longer wants him. Is only staying out of some kind of guilt or pity, and believes he has lost so much esteem in Charles’ eyes that he’s- That Charles would want to pretend they’d never had any kind of relationship? Go back to being strangers?

Dimly, he’s reminded of what Dutch had said. Warning him to stay away, to leave Arthur be. A troublesome influence, a _threat_.

How long has Arthur lived believing he isn’t worth the air he breathes? Believing he is nothing but a cog in Dutch’s clockwork, that kindness comes with an ulterior motive, that loss is all he can ever hope to experience.

“Arthur,” Charles says, soft as prayer. His smile rises, brighter than the sunset behind him. “You beautiful, wonderful, ridiculous fool of a man.”

Arthur blinks at him. Lopsided and hesitant, still unsure what Charles’ answer is, his own smile appears. “I just poured my heart out and you start the insults?” he asks, staring back.

“You are,” Charles says, grinning wide, eyes creased at the corners. “How long has this been worrying you?”

“I’unno…” Shrugging his good shoulder, Arthur looks away. Pink starts to colour the tips of his ears. “A while, I guess. I been nothin’ but a burden on you. Last night was... Thought...you wouldn’t wanna know me no more.”

“And I was worried _you_ wouldn’t feel the same for me after all this,” Charles says, shaking his head minutely, disbelieving. “Thought...I was just making things worse for you. This morning… It was everything I’d dreaded.”

Again, Arthur blinks at him, owlish. “You-”

“Same as you.”

“Well shit.”

Arthur’s laugh is sudden and startled, snorted through his nose, a sudden fountain of incredulity. “We was both worryin’ at the same time?”

“Apparently so.”

“We’re both fucking idiots.”

“We make a good team then.”

They laugh together, and somehow the weight on both of them is lighter for it, like twin blocks have lifted from their shoulders. The pain in Arthur is barely felt, soothed in relief, in shared affection, Charles’ hand still held in his between them.

Arthur squeezes, his weaker fingers twitching as his tendons try to stretch, and as their laughter trails away, he finds himself staring, like looking at Charles for the first time all over again, caught in the beauty of his features, the easy fondness in his smile. He stares like he’s a fallen star, as if he himself hung the moon in the sky with his bare hands, makes the sun rise with just his smile.

“So...you don’t... You still feel-”

“Yes,” Charles says simply. “Of course I do.”

It makes Arthur chuckle, a bubbly sound high in his throat, watching Charles’ expression settle, sinking into something honest and heavy, achingly sincere. “You are my sun and stars, Arthur,” Charles says, voice deeper than before. “It isn’t guilt or...pity that I feel. It never has been. Not even close.”

“I- I ain’t been makin’ it easy, I know, and I’m sorry-”

“It’s the easiest thing in the world to care for you.”

Breath caught, Arthur feels his heart do some kind of triple somersault. “I’ll gladly do it every single day, no matter what, as long as you will have me,” Charles says, with such conviction it’s almost painful to hear, snagging at Arthur’s heart, prying it from whatever dark hole it has lived in for so long, after so much loss and so many futile hopes.

Charles gives him hope. Always.

“I almost lost you again.”

Arthur’s brows pull together, noting the change in tone, a tiny shift towards pain. Looking ahead, Charles’ eyes are amber in the syrup light, reflecting the endless lake, deep wells of carefully-handled emotion. “It isn’t a burden. It could never be. It’s…” Hesitating, Charles pauses, jaw muscle clenching as he swallows. “It’s the one thing that has kept me together since… Since I found you. Your bravery, your strength and resilience. Being there to help has...helped me too. I _want_ to help.”

Silent, Arthur just shifts his weight, and holds Charles’ hand in his lap, sitting close enough for their legs to touch. He strokes each finger with his much more dextrous right hand, a wordless comfort.

“I know it isn’t easy to need it,” Charles says, and tears his gaze from the far distance, resting his head on the tree and looking at Arthur, watching him play with his captured hand. “I know it makes you feel out of control. Embarrassed sometimes.”

“I- I didn’t want-” Arthur sighs, briefly shutting his eyes to think. “I ain’t never gonna be pretty or…” He breaks off, grumbles the next word like it’s personally offended him. “ _Attractive_ , but- You seen me like no one should have to see me. I figured...”

“Vomiting in his lap isn’t the most direct way to a man’s heart?”

“Well it ain’t.”

Lips pulled up, Charles strokes Arthur’s hand with his thumb. “Maybe not directly. But it doesn’t change how I feel. Being sick or afraid, needing help with private things, with anything - It doesn’t change how I see you, or what I want. Nor will it ever. Just makes me more certain that I...care about you. A lot.”

It strikes Charles that he could say the words. The three words. He’s never said them before. They would be true, yet somehow they seem too big for the moment, for the deluge of stress and exhaustion they have both been struggling under. Words are difficult things, tricky, with far more power in their small stature than many realise. They are oaths and promises, lies, laws, incantations; magic not to be misused. The three he’s thinking of demand a calmer mind, a softer place to be spoken.

“I never felt like this neither,” he says instead, gentle, and turns his head again to look out at the lake, profile highlighted in bright gold. “Never thought I _could_ feel like this.”

“Me neither,” Arthur murmurs, following his gaze for a moment, sharing the sunset.

The cigarette smoulders into a stub between Charles’ fingers, brought one last time to his lips before being tamped out. Smoke swirls between them, and Arthur breathes it in in turn, sinking to relax against the tree, content to watch the lake begin to glow with Charles steadfastly beside him. As he always has been. It was only Arthur’s mind that had convinced him otherwise.

Eventually Charles looks back to him, eyes slow like pouring honey. Adoration settles in his expression, plain as the nose on his face. “You’re beautiful,” he says, without any hint of hesitation. No self-deprecating laugh to lessen the impact, no nervousness in his voice, only warm, open sincerity. Pink rises in Arthur’s cheeks.

“Pff. I look like I been ate and shat out. Feel like it too.”

Charles snorts his laughter, a warm rumbling sound, cheeks round as plump fruit. Just seeing him laugh makes Arthur smile in return, the dark circles beneath his eyes almost unnoticeable with how they crease.

“You’re beautiful.”

Smiling still, Arthur scrunches his nose. “Lucky you got a thing for ridiculous old fools.”

“Just one in particular.”

Arthur laughs, and leans back into the trunk, turning his gaze skywards. He’s been such an idiot. As usual. But for once, the frantic little voice inside his head that has been so very vocal of late falls silent, blown by the westerly breeze from the lake shore, the magnolia scent, the slight char of the campfires caught in the air.

Alone with Charles, the world is peaceful.

If only it could always be; if life could just be the two of them and the open space, the earth and the animals.

“Oh,” Charles says, and lets go of his hand. Arthur turns his head. “I got you something.”

“Huh?”

“That’s why I went to Rhodes. I asked Mary-Beth to order it before, so...went to collect it.”

Fishing for a second in his pack, leant against the tree beside him, Charles produces a paper-wrapped package, tied with string. He hands it to Arthur, as if it’s the most mundane of things, as simple and meaningless as passing him the cigarette.

“You-” Arthur blinks at the parcel. “For me? What for?”

Charles simply grants him his barely-there smile, cryptic as ever.

Frowning, Arthur undoes the string bow, and carefully unwraps the brown paper to reveal a book. There’s no title on the cover, just a handsome dark leather and cloth binding, tooled with gold, spine handsewn with gold edging. It’s beautifully made, soft and heavy in his hands, the smell of new leather and paper as attractive to Arthur as the scent of good whiskey.

His mouth opens, but no words come. Like he’s handling thin glass, Arthur opens the book to the decorative inside cover, the first page detailing the publisher’s name, the address of the company that has bound and supplied it to the Rhodes general store, and he realises at once what it is; why there’s no title or author to be found. 

It isn’t a work of fiction; it’s a journal. Each further page is blank, an empty diary, just waiting for ink and pencil and charcoal. A brand new canvas in the most elegant cover.

“It’s-” Arthur shuts his mouth. Opens it again. “Charles…”

“Figured you might prefer a new one,” Charles says, soft, watching Arthur stroke the book’s cover, feeling the dark leather beneath his fingers. “A fresh start. After what happened.”

“It’s beautiful,” Arthur mumbles, lost in the gilt borders, the subtle grain of the leather, the weave of the cloth.

“Hosea’s newspapers aren’t so good for drawing paper either.”

For a while, Arthur is silent. His eyebrows furrow. “Thank you,” he says, though it’s barely voiced at all, a small and august whisper. “It’s perfect- I… Thank you.”

“No need,” Charles replies, and touches Arthur’s hand with the backs of his fingers, leant across the space between them.

Arthur looks up, expression caught. “I- _Why_? I don’t- Why would you-” He shakes his head, stricken. “Ain’t no one ever bought me nothin’ except...I’unno, bailed me outta jail for a few bucks a couple times. Why would- Somethin’ so beautiful, I-”

Words faltering, Arthur drops his chin to his chest, and brings the journal up, cradling it to his breastbone. Quiet, he only manages to whisper. “No one’s ever been so kind to me. Why would you do somethin’ like this- Why do _any_ of the things you been doing? For- For _me_?”

Charles swallows. He’s not sure what reaction he’d expected, but he’s certain heartbreak wasn’t high on the list. It pulls inside him, a sharp ache behind his sternum, knowing Arthur is so unused to care, to genuine friendship, so unfamiliar with what that looks like, that when he does experience it his first reaction is utter turmoil. Like his mind rejects the entire premise, as if the very idea that someone could honestly want to do something positive for him is incomprehensible. It had led him to push Charles away that morning, constantly convincing him he isn’t good enough, that he isn’t worthy of anything positive.

Gentle, Charles shifts closer, facing him. The sky is orange and pink behind him, but he leans to something far more beautiful, far more special, and takes Arthur’s left hand again, folding it in his. “Do you truly not know?” he asks quietly, bringing the hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss to Arthur’s knuckles.

Still clinging to the journal, Arthur looks back at him, eyes wide and glassy, a fragility within them that is rarely, if ever, seen by other people. He searches Charles’ gaze, flicking between the pessimistic certainty that he’ll find some hint of deception there, some reason to keep his expectations low; and the contrasting, shimmering hope that he’s understood the implication in the words, that he knows what Charles means, a tiny thrilling glimpse of potential.

“You have no idea what you do to me, do you?” Charles says, only fond amusement in his voice, lips turned up in the softest smile he can manage. “How much I feel for you.”

“I-” Arthur sets the journal in his lap, still staring. “I ain’t nothin’ special.”

Charles huffs, a sharp exhale, and leans closer still, his expression turning fierce almost at once. His voice hardens, and even though he isn’t facing the sunset any longer, Arthur is sure he still sees fire in his eyes, but a foot from him, imploring him to understand. “You’re _you_ ,” is all he says, holding Arthur’s gaze tight.

For a long moment, Arthur can only stare back, caught up in the abject sincerity, the passion in Charles’ face, buffeted against the bewilderment in his own.

Careful, he sets the journal to his other side, reverently placed on the paper packaging to protect it from any dirt on the forest floor. When he looks back, the same ardent expression greets him, and it would be impossible to argue if he could even find it in himself to want to, overwhelmed by the surge of emotion inside him, like a flame given new kindling, roaring to life from embers, a fresh rush of oxygen making the fire flare. His fingers feel clumsy. He lets the book go to face the warmth in Charles’ eyes, the way he looks at him- Like he’s something precious, something worth fighting for, despite everything that’s happened, despite everything he’s seen. Charles looks at him with the simmer of determination, pride, affection, desire- And all for _him_. _Arthur_ has stoked that flame in him. 

Unable to think of much else, Arthur glances at his lips. Shifts, hesitantly forward, leaning close, eyes shyly downcast. Charles’ hand comes up, thumbs his bearded cheek, and they stay there for a moment, breathing in each other’s space. 

“You’re you,” Charles says again, barely audible at all, a naked whisper, the sort heard only before a shrine. Blue eyes flick up. The sunlight hits them, pupils constricting beneath a halo of golden hair, fluffy from its wash; a mop of perfect chaos to crown his handsome head, Charles’ thumb stroking through his beard.

Charles has known many wonders in his life, but nothing quite like Arthur. Nothing like how he feels just being with him, sharing his space, seeing the sun smile on him. Knowing that he loves him, and knowing even wordlessly, that he is loved in return.

If only he could see himself in Charles’ eyes. He’d see he _shines_.

Arthur kisses him. A tiny press of his lips at first, leaning in and then slightly away, nestling into the hand that holds his face. It could be easily written off as something innocent, if necessary, much like the first time they had kissed, so many weeks ago. His eyes stay open, glancing up to Charles’ for further permission, for consent to something greater, that same spark of hope plain to see.

They are bright and clear and blue, and the bloodshot horror they had been trapped behind is far from both their minds.

Charles doesn’t need more convincing.

They meet somewhere in the middle, at once pressed together in a kiss like a flash fire, suddenly igniting, roaring as it catches light. Crashing into Charles’ chest, Arthur loses all his breath in one, gasping through his nose as his hands cling to whatever part of Charles they can reach, tangling in his hair, groping at his back and shoulders. He’s in Charles’ lap a second later, hands on his hips bringing him close, hauling him across to straddle Charles’ thighs and keep him there, weight and warmth making him groan.

Another gasping breath and Arthur sits heavily, tentatively settling his hips down and forward. The same noise rumbles in Charles’ chest, and he can feel the way Arthur’s lips stretch in a grin within the kiss, tilting his head to explore a new angle, nose squashed as he leans so tightly into Charles’ cheek, desperate for more points of contact.

It’s dizzying, directionless, weeks of stress and sadness and so _much_ \- So much of everything, so much to think about, so much space between them, and it shatters with every movement of their hands, every new kiss, new touch, colliding like stags in rut. It doesn’t matter what has come before, both chasing sensation, galloping together just for the fun of it, drowning every fear and doubt of the past month in the other’s lips, the other’s hands, drunk on thrill.

There’s been so many things on his mind, Arthur hadn’t realised how much he’d missed Charles. How desperately he wants him. How brave and passionate and _good_ he feels with Charles’ hands on him.

Deep fluttering heat settles in his gut, making his fingers itch, his toes want to curl. He arches as Charles’ hand trails down his spine, waiting for his nodded permission before dipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. It’s easy to push deeper without suspenders holding them up, and Charles gropes at his ass as Arthur huffs and gasps, smile slipping to Charles’ cheek, kissing his jaw, his chin, melting into his chest.

“Mmf- Prickles,” Charles growls, and opens his eyes just enough to catch Arthur’s, free hand pulling in his hair, cheek against the rough stubble of Arthur’s beard.

“Sorry-”

“I like it,” Charles says, almost purring, free hand stroking his cheek, pinching a tuft of unshaven hair as he runs his fingers back to Arthur’s scalp. “Feels good.”

Breathlessly laughing, Arthur huffs, and goes straight back to kissing his cheek, nuzzling his skin, rubbing the bristles of his beard down to Charles’ jawline and nipping there, tongue quick to soothe after every bite of his teeth. Another rumbling growl and Charles chases his mouth, stealing him back for more proper kisses, his other hand continuing its pawing beneath Arthur’s jeans, feeling his hips stutter against him in response.

The friction is tantalising. Arthur’s breath hitches every second. He nips Charles’ bottom lip, hand falling from his hair to touch his chest, the short placket of buttons over his sternum, the swell of his breast, the hard muscle beneath. In tandem, Charles’ hands come up to bracket Arthur’s sides, careful as he strokes over his ribs and settle on his thighs, lingering there to admire their bulk while Arthur runs his palm over the weight of his belly, thick and soft and irresistible, shy fingers slipping easily beneath his untucked tunic, gasping again when they brush bare skin. He paws Charles’ stomach, appreciative noise caught in his throat, grin giddy.

“I want…” he hums into Charles’ lips, unable to stop kissing him for more than a moment, even to speak. “I want- Mmh.”

“Tell me,” Charles mumbles, deep in his voice, hands smoothing up Arthur’s thighs as he snatches more kisses.

Timid, Arthur’s right hand slips from his stomach down over the front of Charles’ jeans, toying with the heaviness there, the vague impression of shape. His fingers curl, squeezing the slightest amount. “Please?” he asks, curious. Breathless. Wants to touch, to explore.

Another growl, Charles leaning back, bringing Arthur with him, hand under his hips, adjusting his weight. “Whatever you want,” he says, an open invitation, and lets his mouth slip to Arthur’s cheek, kissing to his jaw, beneath his chin, nipping at his throat.

The beard is an odd sensation on his tongue, on his lips. Prickly, like kissing a scrubbing brush. But Charles doesn’t care in the slightest, adoring the strange feeling, the salt of sweat, the slightly floral scent of soap on Arthur’s skin, the taste of tobacco still in his own mouth. He wants to kiss every inch of Arthur, prickly or not, let his lips know every curve and scar and ticklish spot, convince him of his beauty and his bravery, the magnitude of Charles’ feeling for him. Wants to bite into his skin and lick the tiny bruises left behind, dig in his nails, see him flush, knowing any mark he leaves on Arthur’s skin is wanted and welcome, an affirmation of his own autonomy rather than a violation of it. A message to the world that Arthur controls his own body, and he has chosen to have Charles worship it.

“Dangerous,” Arthur murmurs, smirk on his lips as he again curls his fingers, pressing at the stiff front of Charles’ jeans, delighting in the huff of breath from his neck, the answering nip of Charles’ teeth.

“Don’t mind a bit of danger.”

“Mmm- God damn you.”

Arthur fists his weak hand in Charles’ waterfall of hair, encouraging him back up to kiss him, just as hungry as before. It’s more tongue than much else, clumsy and breathless, a messy clash, and Arthur starts to pry at Charles’ jeans, undoing the first button of the fly, then the second, slipping on the next, fingers weak.

“Mean it,” Charles hums, voice thick, dragging Arthur into him as his other hand unfastens the remaining buttons for him, pressing Arthur’s hand to his groin with his own. “Whatever you want. I’m yours. All of me.”

Foreheads leant together, for just a moment to catch their breath, Arthur opens his eyes, staring desperate and heavy as he squeezes, feeling Charles’ covered length beneath his palm. The heat is stifling even through his underwear, and Arthur gasps as Charles does, open-mouthed, barely managing to keep kissing, just breathing together, sharing the heated air.

Arthur shuts his eyes. “I-I’ve never…”

“S’okay. Whatever’s good- Whatever you want.”

“I just- Want-”

He groans, and tries to undo his own jeans, managing one button before his hand goes back to Charles’, pawing the straining fabric. “L-Let me,” he rasps, eyes hungry when he opens them. “Let me- And you- Please…”

Somehow making sense of it, Charles licks into his mouth again, a sloppy and fierce kiss. His own hand easily unfastens Arthur’s fly and pushes past, groping him, swallowing the low noise Arthur makes, a rumble of pleasure. They palm each other through thin underwear, fabric dragging, friction hot, Arthur’s curious fingers the first to go further, slipping past the waistband to touch bare skin for the first time.

Charles sighs, deep and laboured as Arthur’s palm finds his cock, hesitant despite how eager he is to touch, to seek more contact. His eyes flicker up again, fair eyelashes flecked gold in the sunset, and Charles kisses him, kisses his cheek, his jawline, encouraging without words. The touch grows bolder, stroking, Charles tracing the shape of Arthur through his union suit in turn, deftly unfastening the lowest buttons. He hesitates.

“Sure?”

“Yes- Please-”

Charles slips his hand past the fabric, fingers grazing wiry hair as he finds Arthur’s length, feeling his shudder, the hissed gasp. Has no one ever touched him before? Just to give him pleasure? Just to see the capsule of ecstasy on his face, the shiver in his spine as his cock hardens, firming slowly with the throb of blood, flesh blushing in the open air.

“Shit,” Arthur breathes, and rolls his hips, sitting deep. The toes of his boots scrape in the dirt, knees splayed apart with Charles’ thick thighs in the middle of them, easy friction. Air hits his naked length as Charles takes hold of him, and he groans into Charles’ shoulder, eyes open to watch his hand move with morbid fascination, gently coax him to hardness with unashamed ease, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Perhaps it is. With Charles it certainly feels natural, no hint of shame or embarrassment in either of them, despite the fact they’re only a few hundred yards from camp.

On cue, Arthur looks up, flushed face turned in the general direction of the campsite. Both wandering hands still, and Charles nuzzles at his cheek, arm wrapping around his hips, keeping him steady on his already aching legs. “Wanna stop?” he asks, with such an earnest honesty that Arthur is struck by it, heart fluttering at how certain he is that Charles _would_ stop, would never ask anything of him he wasn’t wholly consenting to give.

“No,” he answers, voice still low, a hungry purr. “No. Fuck it. Don’t care if someone sees.”

Charles’ chuckle is a rumble of thunder, hand again closing, stroking Arthur’s swollen length. “Wanted you for too _long_ ,” Arthur murmurs, and dips beneath the waistband of Charles’ underwear again, palming him, unable to help his soft groan at how it feels to have him in his hand, his girth and length, fingers grazing the hair at the base where his belly swells. Touching him so intimately, touching another _man_ -

He hisses, and twitches in Charles’ hand, a bead of liquid at his tip. It’s quickly caught on the pad of Charles’ thumb, rubbed about the head and down.

“Me too,” Charles growls, and shifts his weight, legs spread as much as they can be between Arthur’s, freeing more space for his hand, pulling him free of his long johns to stroke his full length, waistband tucked as far down as possible while still clothed.

More kisses are snatched in the middle, wet lips and sweating brows, free hands touching wherever they can. Both chests heave, foreheads leant together when breath is more necessary than kissing, eyes heavy-lidded and catching the other’s, making them smile in the hazy rush of adrenaline, laugh into the other’s kiss, exhilarated and building fast.

As soon as Charles’ hand takes a firmer hold, stroking faster, Arthur’s panting turns insistent, unable to keep kissing him as he gasps and huffs into Charles’ cheek. His own hand falters, already feeling the ache of fatigue in his upper arm, and he twists accidentally, the tight weight in his abdomen making him jerk.

Wonderfully, Charles makes the most enticing noise of pleasure, a deep and needy groan which tails into a growl of Arthur’s name, and Arthur grins against his cheekbone, repeating the movement, twisting his wrist around the tip of Charles’ length. The thighs he’s sitting on twitch, heels dug in to the dirt beneath him, and he finds Charles’ dark eyes on his, nose nuzzling at Arthur’s beard, teeth managing to nip some spiked hair and pinch, just as he squeezes his hand.

Arthur’s breath stutters. “Charles-” His hips rock forward, pushing for more contact. Charles’ roll up in return, keeping him in the cradle of his lap, asking for more, rougher, faster- And Arthur can feel his gut twist as Charles repeats the movement, jerking at his cock, short and shallow and then long and slow, stroking each other in loose tandem, uncaring for how messy or inelegant it is.

All that matters is each other. The heat, the salt of sweat and cigarette-stale taste, the unison breath and building tension, heavy and sloshing, rising with every gulp of air. At some point they press together as close as possible, two hands as one, flesh against naked flesh, and the slip of slick friction between them is unbearable, an obscene and delicious sensation, melting into the other’s hand, the other’s cock, rushing helpless and clumsy to a fumbling, glorious shared peak.

Arthur reaches his first, a deep release of breath and voice, hips stuttering forward as he comes. He jerks into the warmth of Charles’ hand, and he’s tugging Charles with him to his own finish moments later, no more than a guttural sigh when he finds it, twitching in both their loosening grips, muscles taut and shaking.

Their hips clash, jeans pulled tight around straining thighs, and Charles’ hand takes both of their lengths together, stroking the last dregs of pleasure before it turns into toe-curling oversensitivity, and still panting, Arthur sags against Charles’ chest, draped over him like an old coat, limp and shivering. Charles’ arms wrap around him automatically, an instant comfort, hugging him close, soothing his overwrought muscles. “You good?” he murmurs, barely a whisper in Arthur’s ear, nuzzling at his hair.

Arthur hums, a satisfied and sated noise, deep in his chest. “Good,” Charles says, and cradles Arthur’s head where it’s buried in his neck. “I’ve got you.”

He stays there for a while, just breathing, only moving to tuck himself back into his underwear once he can, fastening his jeans, as Charles does, wiping away the mess on a crumpled tissue Charles finds in his pack.

They rest together against the tree, Arthur boneless and heavy against Charles’ chest, slumped in his lap, listening to his heartbeat. There’s a breeze still blowing in from the west, and it’s a welcome respite from the heat of both of them, evening sun sinking ever lower towards the far horizon of the lake.

It’s clear why it’s often called the ‘Golden Hour’. The sky is a brilliant canvas of orange and pink, lilac fast melting into the indigo of twilight, splendid stained glass above the opaque altar of Flat Iron Lake, reflecting each colour and cloud a thousandfold, cascading in concentric ripples all the way to the shore. Seabirds flock in loose crowds, flying home to roost for the night, and between their slowing breathing, the water is audible above the evening song of insects, still a way off from their spot in the trees, but rhythmic with the gentle waves, washing at the stretching sand.

When he finally picks his head up, Arthur finds Charles’ eyes, sinking to look at him as though he is the sunset himself, a glowing natural wonder he is blessed to see so close at hand, and for once, Arthur doesn’t feel the urge to shy away, to protest or push, content to bask in Charles’ heartfelt adoration of him, as long as Charles doesn’t mind receiving his in return.

“You’re beautiful,” Charles says again, hand brushing through Arthur’s wayward hair, now long enough to wave slightly through each strand, like the irregular beach below them, following no pattern but its own. He seems hardly ruffled in the slightest; which isn’t fair at all in Arthur’s opinion, sure he himself looks like he’s been pulled through a hedge backwards. Even more than he had before getting out of bed.

It doesn’t matter. Charles smiles at him. Only him. That’s so much more fulfilling than any vague self-conscious notions of his own attractiveness.

“Ain’t too shabby yourself,” Arthur replies, voice lazy and thick, and leans up to kiss his lips, smirking around Charles’ fond smile. “Most beautiful man on this lousy Earth, I reckon.” He shifts his aching weight, gingerly settling to the side of Charles and leaning into his shoulder. “Though it...kinda don’t seem so lousy when I’m with you.”

“Funny,” Charles says softly, snaking his arm around Arthur’s back. “It doesn’t seem as lousy when I’m with you too.”

Leaning across him, Arthur picks up the new journal, still safe in its paper wrapping to the side of them. He discards the paper again, fingers stroking down the book’s spine, lingering on the gold tooling, the linear patterns on the cover. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and looks up at Charles. “Again. I’m sorry about this mornin’, and...well. Everything. I-I gotta...talk more. You said before about...gettin’ stuck down the rabbit hole sometimes, and- I know I gotta...talk better. Ask for help.”

Gentle, Charles simply kisses his head. “It ain’t easy, I know. Talking. Especially with the month you’ve had.”

“It’s been a month?”

“Mhm.”

“Huh. You been lookin’ after me for a whole month?”

Again Charles just smiles his small smile, moving one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Since that first night,” he says, quieter. “Every day has been a relief. There were times when...I wasn’t certain if we’d have many more.”

Frowning for a second, deflective humour takes control of his response before Arthur can truly consider whether it’s the appropriate time or place, huffing his breath in a wry chuckle where his head rests on Charles’ shoulder. “You’re stuck with me now. Ain’t gonna get rid of me,” he says, relieved when Charles’ expression turns exasperated, in a fond sort of way, raising an eyebrow at him. “I’m like one of them...them things you get on boats. What’re they called? Things like… Li’l shell-lookin’ things.”

“Shell-looking things?”

“Sure, y’know like- Li’l…”

He gestures with his hand, scrunching his fingers and thumb into a point. “They stick to boats. Li’l hard, boat-sticking, shell-having, rocky assholes. Are they alive? I dunno, actually. They latch onto boats and shit, you know what I mean-”

“Barnacles?”

“Barnacles! That’s it. Barnacles. I’m like one of them. I’m a barnacle.”

Charles looks down at him, deadpan.

“And you’re the boat. In this situation.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

After a moment of silence, Charles bursts out laughing, snorting through his nose, and Arthur quickly joins in, wheezing his big bold laugh, like when he’s had too many drinks and everything is incomprehensibly hilarious. Eyes creased up, he buries his head in Charles’ broad breast, and feels Charles’ own braying laughter deep and rumbling within him, breath in his hair.

“Barnacles,” Charles manages, laughing all the more.

“They stick- Stick to things! I-” More wheezing, Arthur wrapping his arms around his sides as his ribs start to ache, scrunched nose and apple cheeks. He giggles into Charles’ shoulder, admiring the rare, beautiful sight of Charles’ genuine grin, another gift. “I ain’t- I _mean_ , I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not as long as I can help it.”

Humming as his laughter peals away, stray chuckles clinging in his voice, Charles can only smile at him. “I’m glad,” he says, and brings his hand up to Arthur’s cheek, cradling his face. “I want as much time with you as possible.”

Smile softening, Arthur seems to sober with the words, eyes downcast for just a moment before he finds Charles’ again. But it’s enough for Charles to notice. He strokes his cheekbone with the backs of his fingers and leans close, resting his forehead on Arthur’s. “And if it takes every day I have left on this Earth to convince you of that,” he says, rumbling deep in his chest cavity, with an earnest ferocity that Arthur knows intimately, a low promise that’s noticeable in his voice whenever he’s speaking the most sincere words he can muster. He believes them more ardently than any faith in any god, doctrine, or creed, and Arthur is unable to do anything but listen, unwilling to miss even a syllable of Charles’ treasured, blessed honesty. “Then I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life trying.”

It sits between them, in the tufts of grass and fern fronds, the warmth of Charles’ palm on his cheek, stirring in Arthur the promise of something unspoken, something that transcends a casual fling between friends, speaks of a far deeper bond. A part of Charles worries that he might have implied too much. But Arthur’s eyes are starry when he finds them, dazzling, and Charles knows it isn’t doubt looking back at him.

It’s hope.

Arthur kisses him, gentle. There’s none of the haste of before, a sibilant whisper in place of the roar, but it’s just as passionate, a safe and easy embrace, melting together like chocolate in a warm hand.

Eventually, Arthur breaks first, eyes kept closed, voice thick when he speaks. “I want that too,” he says, and nuzzles Charles’ nose with his, making him laugh again as they settle back against the tree side by side.

They share another cigarette as the evening winds on, content to sit in comfortable quiet, the woods soon losing the sunlight, darkening to dusk between the high boughs. Fireflies begin to float about the undergrowth, tiny pinpricks of green hanging in the air like the lights of distant boats across the lake, blinking in the fading day. Before long, the breeze dies down, but the evening stays mild, still and pleasant as twilight drifts in with the sunset’s end.

Sat together against the tree, Arthur hasn’t felt so carefree in what seems like far longer than a month. He wants to smile, permanently, feeling foolish and giddy like a teenager, as always amazed at how easily Charles seems to build him up, instill confidence in him, make him feel...good. About the world, about himself, about everything.

In the space of one evening, he feels so much more certain. Feels like himself. More than he has for a long time.

 

He’s leant on Charles’ shoulder when he hears the first shout of his name, almost dozing with how relaxed he is, sure he could fall asleep easily. The past few days have been just as exhausting as the previous four weeks have been in their entirety, and Charles makes such a safe and comfortable pillow. His head is blissfully silent, lulled to a pleasant and hazy quiet, and he is content to live within the current moment, with no fear or worry about what will come next.

The shout comes again. He picks his head up.

Charles leans to look around the tree trunk, back in the direction of camp, and spots a flash of yellow advancing through the trees, a blonde head and familiar voice attached. Sadie. “Mrs Adler?” he calls, and Sadie appears from the foliage, heading towards them.

At once, Arthur shifts away, dragging a hand through his unkempt hair, straightening the waistband of his jeans. Typical. He should’ve known it was too good to be true to find a mere hour alone without some kind of interruption.

“There you are,” Sadie chides, sweeping back some errant strands of her hair, cheeks slightly flushed from the walk. “Oh- _Arthur_ , don’t fuss. You don’t gotta pretend you wasn’t sitting in his lap.”

Arthur blinks, eyes suddenly wide. “Huh?”

“Oh,” Charles says weakly, half-smile crossing his lips. “I should have said, I’m sorry. Mrs Adler knows...far more than she lets on.”

“Like it weren’t obvious,” Sadie says brightly, rolling her eyes as she moves to stand between them and the lake, thumbs coming to rest in her belt. “You boys been loopy for each other since Horseshoe Overlook.”

Glancing from Charles to Sadie, then back to Charles, Arthur just blinks some more. “Huh?” he says again, blank expression like a goldfish, and Sadie chuckles.

“You remember when we went grocery shopping? After I was gonna fillet Pearson?”

“Yeah...”

Sadie grins at Charles, shaking her head as if she’s recounting the hilarious exploits of a small child to a relative at a family gathering. “All he talked ‘bout was you. There _and_ back. Charles this, Charles the other.”

“I did not!”

“I thought, maybe he’s gonna comment on my pretty new blouse? Sein’ as yellow is absolutely my colour, and I doubt he’s ever seen a lady’s waist enough to know they got ‘em in the first place, so he’s definitely gonna notice the pants-”

Mouth open, Arthur can’t think of a retort quickly enough, looking to Charles for help. All he finds is a stifled smirk, full of affection, the barest hint of sympathy in his eyes.

“But no, all this one’s interested in is _Charles_.” She tuts with faux indignance, and puts on her best Arthur accent, a growling Southern drawl that doesn’t sound anything like him, thank you very much. “‘Did you know you can make yellow dye from the bark of black oak trees?’”

“That ain’t how I talk-”

“‘Charles told me his mother’s people used lichen to make yellow dye to colour feathers, ain’t that something?’ and all sorts of _tales_ -”

“And porcupine quills,” Arthur adds.

“Porcupine quills!” Sadie says, gesticulating with one hand. “Not one word ‘bout the Raiders we put down not a half mile from Rhodes, not curious where I learnt to shoot or whether law was tailin’ us so close to camp, about Pearson’s private mail we definitely didn’t read - no sir! All he got on his mind is _Charles_. Pretty damn obvious you was crazy for each other even before this whole mess.”

Unable to hide his amusement, Charles laughs, bright and delighted. He looks back at Arthur next to him, sympathetic downturn to his eyebrows. “You remembered that?”

Pink is starting to colour the tips of Arthur’s ears, prickling across his cheeks in an indignant blush. “Course I did,” he replies, sheepish smile appearing. “Everythin’ you say is some kinda fascinating to my dumb ass. You’re smart and...wise. And you know all kinda things I never heard of.” He shrugs his good shoulder, looking down at his lap. “I love when you share that stuff with me.”

Beaming, Charles leans across to him and takes his hand, squeezing it in his. “I love that you listen. I’ve never known anyone to be interested before.”

Arthur’s eyes flick up, nervously glancing to Sadie, then back to Charles. “Are you kidding? I could listen to you talk all day. Might make me smarter.”

Charles huffs, chiding, but Arthur’s tone is playful, stroking Charles’ hand with his thumb. For a moment they simply look at each other, warm and adoring.

“Oh my Lord, I wish I’d never said nothing,” Sadie snaps, flapping at them both. Her expression is scathing, but she’s wrestling with her own grin all the same, eyes rolled. “ _Enough_ , before you rot my teeth. Will you get your asses back to camp? We was tryin’ to get a party goin’, but it ain’t much fun without the man we’re s’posed to be celebratin’.”

“Celebrating?” Arthur asks, accepting Charles’ proffered hand to help him to his feet, supporting him while his legs wake up. “Why we celebrating?”

“Maybe Micah died,” Charles says bluntly.

Arthur bursts into snorting laughter, carefully hugging the new journal to his chest while Charles picks up his pack, deadpan expression making it even funnier. “Went out to shit and hogs ate him, here’s hopin’.”

Smirking in silence, Charles takes Arthur’s weak hand, providing some extra stability by his side, ready to help if he needs to lean on him for balance. It isn’t a long walk, but Arthur’s already put himself through far too much in the past few days, clearly in pain. His gait is stiff, and he pitches to the side with every step, shifting his centre of balance to lessen the load on his sheared muscles, still unable to support himself equally.

“Unfortunately nothin’ so exciting,” Sadie says, wordlessly offering to take the journal from Arthur to save him carrying it, freeing his right arm to help him balance. He shakes his head, but gifts her a grateful smile as thanks for asking. “Me and John was just thinkin’...well, you been through a lot. Before Dutch can get you runnin’ yourself ragged again, we thought it’d be nice to drink to you not bein’ dead yet.”

“Pff. Should be celebratin’ Charles then,” Arthur says, still holding the journal against his sternum as they start to walk back in the direction of camp, winding through the trees. “It’s his fault I’m still here.”

His hand is squeezed, Charles’ lips pulled at one corner as they walk together. “Oh I know,” Sadie replies, a few steps ahead of them, leading the way. She looks back, keeping her pace slow so as not to hurry Arthur accidentally. “I saw him off that mornin’. If he hadn’t gone lookin’ for you…well. Dutch was furious, mind. John tried to make up some story but it didn’t convince no one. And then...there Charles was that night, ridin’ in with you in his arms, lookin’ like a corpse. Shut Dutch up real fast.”

“Huh,” Arthur says, distant, as though he’s concentrating, frowning to himself. He carefully picks his way through clumps of entangled undergrowth, tufted grass just waiting to trip him, send him ass-over-head into a ditch full of nettles. Beside him, Charles’ jaw muscle clenches, and he wills none of his sudden tension to show through his arm or hand, wills his expression to remain neutral. He’s sure Arthur can’t remember a lot of the actual night he’d brought him back. His assumption had likely been that it was Dutch who initiated the search for him. Charles isn’t sure how welcome the knowledge that Dutch didn’t even seem to notice he’d gone will be. Even if no one has said so directly, Arthur isn’t half as clueless as he often claims he is.

“I can’t really remember none of it,” Arthur adds, and shrugs, offering a small smile to Charles as they keep walking. A part of him had thought Charles was there, seeing him in flashes of memory, snippets amongst the pervading fog, but he hadn’t been sure it wasn’t just a figment of his imagination, conjuring Charles’ likeness to comfort himself, even subconsciously. It’s good to know he hadn’t simply dreamt it.

Why would Dutch have been angry? 

He knows he was coming for him. Dutch had told him so himself. Perhaps Charles was simply the vanguard, leading the search party, seeing as he’s easily the best tracker amongst them. Scouting ahead before the rest of the gang was called in. Maybe he advocated moving earlier, and that’s why Dutch was annoyed.

That makes sense, in his head. Dutch surely suspected a trap after all, surely knew Colm had something planned. Sending the entire gang would’ve been foolhardy. A lone scout and some well-placed patience would do a much more efficient job at locating Arthur, making sure they’d all escape alive.

He thinks that makes sense, at any rate.

But why did John try to make up a cover story? For what?

It doesn’t matter. He’s alive, and Charles feels just as strongly for him as he did before. Charles wants _him_ , even with the extra stitches holding him together, the patchwork mending his tears and frayed edges, where his seams have come apart. Compared to that, the dizzy elation that revelation brings, the end of the world could come and Arthur would still be smiling.

 

The shadows are long, the main campfire shrouded by the great oak tree, sun now just a sliver of gold to the west, melting into the water like a pat of butter. Indigo reigns in the sky above, a brilliant wash of purple and blue, bleeding into each other, stars starting to wake behind the last residual light of day.

With a final sigh, the remaining orange glow on the far horizon sinks below the water, a dusky blue blanket drawn up over the sun’s tired head, and all glister of hot radiant day is gone. The simmering summer night begins.

There’s a cheer as they approach the camp proper, passing by the medicine wagon, Charles’ hand moving unnoticed to the small of Arthur’s back, lingering silent on the cinch strap of his jeans as they walk together. Sean’s voice shouts from the campfire, and whatever he says must have been funny enough - that, or everyone is already disastrously drunk - gaining a chorus of laughter from the others, crowded around the fire like moths around paraffin lamps, embers blown up like miniature fireworks.

Arthur stops by his wagon first, tucking the new journal reverently underneath his pillow before Sadie shepherds them both towards the party, flapping at them like a mother at her unruly children. “I won’t hear another word, just come and have a drink!”

“I’m tired,” Arthur groans, attempting to brush his unkempt hair with his fingers. “Feel like I already been awake for a week.”

It’s unlike him to pass up a free drink, especially with the prospect of bad singing too, but Charles knows the thought of socialising isn’t a particularly positive one, even with people they consider family. It means having to be seen, be spoken to, be observed and judged, and Arthur has lost some of his defensive bravado, his ability not to care about what he looks like or how he appears to others.

Or perhaps more accurately, he seems to have lost the ability to _pretend_ not to care.

“You sound like an old man,” Sadie says fondly.

“I _am_ an old man.”

“Well you ain’t dead yet, so come have some fun with us. Ain’t no one gonna bother you, I promise. Hosea made sure it was Micah’s turn to guard, and old Trelawny’s volunteered too - pretty handy with a revolver, surprisin’ enough.”

Arthur sighs, briefly sharing a look with Charles, communicating his reluctance without words. Quiet, Charles offers his half-smile, touching Arthur’s back again, hand lingering there for longer than it should.

“Fine,” Arthur snaps, huffing. “Guess I...owe Charles a couple drinks anyway.”

“There you go!” says Sadie, and ushers them both in the direction of the fire. “C’mon.”

They traipse behind her, careful steps across the grass. “Traditionally,” Charles murmurs, as they near the oak tree, only loud enough for Arthur to hear. “I think you’re supposed to buy a man a drink _before_ you get...physical with him.”

He’s smirking, eyes already alight with the campfire’s glow even as he looks steadfastly ahead. Arthur snorts his laughter beside him. “Well, damn. Shoulda told me that ‘fore I got my hands on you.”

Still smirking, Charles shrugs one shoulder. “We ain’t the most traditional pair anyway,” he says, as sultry as the heat clinging in the evening air.

Another cheer erupts, the gathered gang members raising their bottles as they reach the campfire, all trying to greet him at once. “There he is!” Sean chirps from amongst the crowd, sitting on the felled log, seemingly a much more cheerful drunk than he was the previous day with poor Kieran. “ _Miracle Morgan_.”

“Good to see ya, Arthur!”

“How you feelin’?”

“Come, have a drink, Arthur!”

Everyone _is_ already drunk apparently, but Arthur takes that as a positive thing. Hopefully more attention will be on the liquor than on him. And as he greets them in return, he finds no prying eyes staring back at him, no ceasing laughter or averted gazes. All is bright smiles and raised bottles, a genuine relief in all of them to see him looking better.

He’s handed a bottle of something, and Kieran is displaced from his spot on the floor so that Arthur can sit, managing to apologise to the kid as Charles is summarily planted next to him, a similarly nondescript bottle thrust into his hand too.

John is on his other side, cackling at something Javier has said over the body of the guitar cradled against his chest, strings stroked beneath his hand. Sean retakes his place on the log between Karen and Uncle, both faces flushed like red radishes. Opposite Arthur, Miss Grimshaw and Hosea have a chair each, and next to them Tilly, Lenny, and Mary-Beth are sharing a joke. Kieran shyly joins them after vacating his fireside seat, Mary-Beth giggling behind her hand, whatever she says making Kieran blush. Presumably Jack has been put to bed with Cain watching over him, Abigail and Sadie standing with Pearson next to the chuckwagon, urging him to break out the Navy rum as he whisks a simple batter, and chops some of the remaining sugar apples, making fritters to fry in the smoking fireside skillet.

Dutch isn’t present at first glance, but at second is noticed standing outside his own tent, observing from a distance. Similarly, Micah and Bill are absent, but no one seems particularly sorry about that.

It’s a jovial little gathering, noisy and out of tune as ever, but the fire is hot, and there’s coffee brewing black and rich on the pot hanger, and Arthur doesn’t feel half as out of place as he’d feared he would. Charles lounges next to him, sipping from his bottle silently as always, and before long, Javier starts playing, picking out ‘Clementine’ with his deft fingers.

“Morgan.”

Arthur looks up from the ground, singing along, and Bill appears in the crowd, dropping himself heavily into a free chair next to Uncle, dragged over from somewhere else. The bottle in his hand is half drunk, and he gestures with it to punctuate his clumsy speech, clearly already feeling its effects.

“I just- I wanna say-”

Glancing at Charles, whose expression is about as amiable as the backend of a skunk, and then back up to Bill, Arthur waits.

“I’m _sorry_ , alright?” Bill snaps, dragging his forearm across his mouth to wipe it dry. “Last night, I sh- Said some things...I shouldn’t have. Weren’t...b-brotherly of me. I’m sorry.”

“Uh...sure, Bill, don’t sweat it.”

“I seen some things, in the army,” Bill continues, gruff and slurring, pointing the bottle at Arthur and Charles. “I seen things, _crazy_ things done to a man’s mind. Men gone blind, men dr-drove half mad! Ain’t n-nothin’ to laugh at. So...I apologise.”

Again glancing to Charles, unsure if they’re both hearing the same words or if he’s having some kind of solo hallucination, Arthur just nods. “Thanks, I guess, uh…” he says, raising his drink by way of changing the subject. “I...appreciate that, Bill. Let’s just drink to...puttin’ all this shit behind us.”

“Right y’are,” Bill replies, and takes a deep swig from his bottle, excess whiskey streaming through his beard.

He starts singing along to Clementine before long, nearly elbowing Uncle from the log beside him before the two of them burst out laughing, swaying together as they belt the chorus, drinks raised like conductor’s batons.

“Wonders’ll never cease,” Charles mumbles, and Arthur can only share an amused and incredulous look with him in reply, taking a long drink of his own.

There’s another small cheer when the song ends, hearty applause from around the firelit circle, and Javier picks up his beer bottle from beside him, raising it above the guitar in his lap in toast. “Friends! Let us drink to our dear friend Arthur, who we love as our brother!” he says, and grins, lopsided and slipping across his lips, as though his smile itself is drunk, clumsily tangling in his wispy moustache. The crowd hollers again. “It is good to have you safe,amigo.”

“Hear, hear!” Karen cries, descending into giggles a second later.

“Ain’t the same without you, old man,” comes Lenny’s voice.

“We sure missed you, Arthur,” Tilly says gently, smiling across the fire at him.

“We sure missed you doin’ some work!” Susan laughs, to a dramatic groan from the crowd, like the audience at a pantomime who has just been introduced to the wicked witch, or the evil king, booing with theatrical disdain.

“Oh, enough with that,” Hosea grumbles beside her. “Let the boy live.”

“No pun intended,” Sean quips.

Karen smacks him on the arm, but they all laugh just the same, even Arthur. “I’m jokin’ woman, leave me be. Arthur knows I love ‘im! Like me bitchy...grumpy older brother, he is.”

“Mine too,” John slurs triumphantly, drink wheezing in his voice.

Laughing, Sean gestures with his bottle. “I got all the good looks then, clearly.”

“But none of the brain cells,” Arthur says, and the group erupts in yet more laughter, rising with the campfire smoke into the fast darkening night.

Another crate of drinks is soon brought out and more songs are played, apple fritters fried and shared around with a rare and luxurious spoonful of heavy cream - “These ain’t bad, Pearson, you sure Charles didn’t make them?” - the laughter flowing as easily as the alcohol.

“Let us sing something,” Javier says as the moon begins to rise, filling a lull in the conversation with a few notes on the guitar, testing the tuning. “Any requests? Arthur?”

Chuckling, Arthur glances at Charles next to him, a quiet and steady presence, sharing a smirk. “Y’all know I ain’t no singer.”

“Never stopped you before,” John says around his bottle.

“You’re hilarious, Marston. _Fine_ , Sean what’s that one I like? One you sing. The ‘quack quack’ song.”

“Jack o’ Diamonds, old man! Jack o’ Diamonds.”

“Ah,” Javier hums, “Good choice,” and starts to play before Arthur can answer, an appreciative murmur from the crowd as Sean clears his throat, taking a last drink from his bottle.

He’s got a good voice, which stands to reason with how much practice he gets using it to talk, in Arthur’s opinion, and for a moment they all just listen, Sean’s song accompanied only by the crickets in the grass and nettles, the fluttering of moth wings around the hanging lanterns.

“O Mollie, O Mollie, it’s for your sake alone;

That I leave my old parents, my house and my home.

My love for you, it has caused me to roam;

I’m a rabble rouser and Dixie’s my home.”

An enthusiastic ripple goes through the crowd, claps and whistles. The chorus starts, Sean gesturing with his bottle, conducting an imaginary choir as he beats time, and Arthur joins in, loud and gravelly, about a whole octave lower than Sean’s voice. And only a little bit tipsy.

“Jack o’ diamonds, Jack o’ diamonds, I know you of old;

You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.”

“Not that we never had none in the first place!” Karen calls from beside Sean, and more laughter follows, Uncle and Susan joining the singing, Mr Pearson lending his voice too.

“I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when I’m dry;

And when I get thirsty, I’ll lay down and cry.

It’s beefsteak when I’m hungry, and whiskey when I’m dry;

Green backs when I’m hard-up, and Hell when I die.”

The others whoop and cheer in agreement, Hosea raising his own bottle of beer to that particular sentiment, laughing into the next verse. Turned to Karen, Sean starts singing directly to her, grinning beneath his hat, near falling off the log they’re sitting on.

Arthur just laughs, and somewhere in the midst of the singing, feels Charles’ hand come to rest on his, lying beside him on the ground. He looks up, meeting Charles’ smile as he hums along with the tune.

“If the ocean were whiskey, and I were a duck-”

“ _Quack quack_!”

“I’d dive to the bottom, and get one sweet sup.

But the ocean ain’t whiskey, and I ain’t no duck;

So we’ll play Jack o’ diamonds, and then we’ll get drunk.”

Another cheer, but Arthur is too busy admiring Charles’ firelit eyes to really notice, humming a vague approximation of the tune as the song continues, another loud iteration of the chorus before it ends. Javier strums a grand finale, and the crowd cheers and claps, Sadie wolf-whistling with her fingers to the hilarity of everyone else. A new song is soon chosen, Uncle and Miss Grimshaw starting to sing, and Charles sits minutely closer to Arthur by the fireside, hands held out of sight.

“C’mon, gimme one dance. What harm can it do?” Sean is almost on his knees before Karen, hands clasped together in front of him, begging.

“Oh, a _lot_ ,” Karen snaps, eyebrow raised.

“You’s a cruel mistress, Miss Jones, I’ll give ya that. Makin’ a feller work so hard, enough to put him off for life it is!”

“If only it worked.”

“It only makes me want ya more!” Sean cries, and Karen rolls her eyes as dramatically as possible, her arms folded over her flushed chest. “One dance! _One_ dance, ya cheeky little temptress, just _one_ -”

“Oh, God damn you, you lowlife Irish bastard, _fine_! If there ain’t no one better willin’ to offer,” Karen says, and looks about the crowd for help. “Arthur? Lenny? ... _Hosea_?”

“Give the dog a bone and he’ll shut up for ten minutes,” Arthur says, laughter crackling in his voice.

“Aye, what he said! Gimme a _bone_ , darlin’, just a quick one. A bone is just as good as a dance- Ouch! _Hey_!”

Hauling him by the scruff of his neck, Karen drags Sean to the space next to the campfire, where there’s room enough to dance, smacking at his chest until he stands up straight. Barely sober enough to find Karen’s waist by himself, Sean all but collapses against her in a clumsy embrace, and shuffles with her in his arms, swaying to the music, giddy as a small child in a sweet shop.

The next song ends, and Javier plays another instrumental piece, Hosea politely asking Miss Grimshaw to dance with him ‘to keep his old bones working’, and Lenny managing to persuade an unconvinced Tilly to dance too. Beside him, Arthur sees John glance up at Abigail, and look away, distracted by his bottle, taking a deep drink. A moment later, Sadie has taken Abigail’s hand, and is spinning her beneath her arm beside the others, Abigail laughing like Arthur’s never seen.

“Hey,” Arthur says, and squeezes the hand in his, looking to Charles by his side.

“Hey,” Charles replies, lips drawn up.

“This ain’t so bad.”

“Good.”

Arthur’s smile is only slightly hazy with the whiskey he’s drunk, leaning close to Charles as if sharing a secret. “So… Wanna dance?”

“Oh, no, I...really do not dance,” Charles says, a similar slip and slide in his voice, thick with the drink, a deep flush just visible across his cheekbones.

“ _Liar_ , you’re good at everythin’! I bet you’re a great dancer, you’re just- Just tryin’ to pretend you ain’t. Lyin’ like a no-legged dog, as if I wouldn’t notice-”

“ _No_ ,” Charles laughs, teeth catching the light as his smile grows wide. “I’m not! I don’t dance.”

“How you even know if you won’t try?”

“I just know!”

“It’ll be fun!”

“It won’t, it’ll be embarrassing.”

Arthur laughs, wheezing. “Now who’s bein’ a fool? You ain’t never done nothin’ embarrassing in your life, you ass. You’re _perfect_.” He flaps his hand at him. “Lookatchu, Mister Perfect, everythin’ he does is _perfect_. Ain’t never known a more perfect man.”

“Then you ain’t been checking your mirror lately.”

“Pfffh-” 

Barking his laughter, Arthur leans into him, face crinkled up in a jubilant grin. “That was _terrible_ ,” he chokes, burying a burst of giggles into Charles’ shoulder, leant across to hug his arm. He feels more than hears Charles’ own laughter, rumbling in his chest as he tries to keep quiet, lest everyone know how easily Arthur makes him lose all sense of decorum. There’s a certain reputation to uphold. “And I loved it. Now you _gotta_ dance w’me for- For makin’ me hear that line. Exposin’ me to...to cheese that rank.”

“You’ll be disappointed.”

“Oh- Please. _Everythin’_ you do-”

Arthur picks his head up from Charles’ shoulder, clinging to his forearm like a slightly drunk koala. His eyes blink up, wide and honest. Doe-like. It could just be the alcohol, but Charles is sure he can see the stars reflected back in them, vast and dazzling. “Everythin’ you do, say, think about… Every bit of you makes me...glad I ain’t dead yet. You only make me happy. Happy like I never been before.”

For a second, Charles just stares back. The smell of the wood fire, the skillet sizzling with a new batch of fritters, Javier’s fingers scraping on the guitar strings, a soft brushing noise as he changes to a new chord, a new position; it barely registers. All there is is Arthur. Like his world is condensed into one fine point. The centre of his universe, and there’s whiskey droplets clinging in his overgrown beard, stretched gorgeous and clumsy around his grin.

Charles sighs, stifling his smile. “You owe me so many drinks.”

“S’fine by me,” Arthur says, laughing, swallowing a mouthful from his bottle.

He clambers to his feet, ungainly, and not just from the alcohol. “Can think of... of a f-few ways to show my _appreciation_.”

“Reckon we’ll need more than an hour alone in that case,” Charles says, and Arthur bursts out laughing again, holding onto him as soon as he too stands, leaving their bottles on the ground.

“Also fine by me.”

Charles hums his agreement, and follows Arthur’s lead, picking their way around the campfire to the patch of bare ground beneath the oak tree, lit only by the lanterns hanging from the wagons and tents, flickering candlelight dancing to its own melody with the shadows in the grass.

Nobody seems to notice them, caught up in their own celebrations, dancing and drinking, smoking, singing, sharing stories and music, laughing with each other when someone’s foot is trodden on, smacking Sean’s wandering hands when they try to hold more than just Karen’s waist. Uncle and Bill are slurring their way through ‘The Ring-Dang-Doo’. Even Kieran seems to be enjoying himself, letting Mary-Beth attempt to teach him how to waltz, manoeuvring his arms into position and then spending much more time giggling at his ardent blush than anything else.

Arthur chooses his spot, and turns to face Charles, cheeks more than a little pink. He wobbles, wincing at a twinge of pain from his shoulder, the dressing visible beneath his union suit, padded heavily under the fabric.

At once Charles steps forward, hand gently touching his waist, and Arthur looks up as he does, suddenly but six inches away, pressed against Charles’ chest.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Hey,” Charles replies, letting his palm rest flat, supporting his ribcage. “You good?”

“Ain’t felt better in a long while.”

He smiles, and goes to move his arm to the proper place on Charles’ shoulder, wincing again, torso crumpling forward with the effort, his arm frozen and refusing to be lifted any further. “I ain’t gonna get- Can’t lift it enough.”

“It’s okay. It’s fine wherever.”

Snorting, Arthur laughs, simply holding Charles’ waist in return, taking his hand with the other. “We look like fools.”

“Sure do.”

Somehow, it doesn’t matter that much. Everyone else looks like fools too. But they’re having a good time. The past few months have felt like one disaster after another. Having fun, even acting like idiots, seems like a blessing. A rare gift to hold onto before it slips away.

“I don’t much care,” Charles says, quiet. Arthur’s good hand in his, raised out to the side, they start to sway together, a humble back and forth, lazy and laughing.

“Me neither.”

Javier plucks a new tune, a song Arthur hums along to while they shuffle to and fro. Sat around the fire, Mr Pearson brings out his concertina, and picks up the melody, harmonies somehow even warmer when played in the still of a summer night, swirling with the wood smoke and drifting embers.

Stepping back, Charles lifts Arthur’s right hand in his left, and Arthur clumsily ducks beneath in a halting twirl, nearly tripping over his own boots. He catches Charles for balance, and there’s yet more laughter, rumbling beneath the music like the chirping crickets, the cicadas in the oak boughs, and the horses grazing on the outskirts, settling for the warm night.

A Paint mare stands slightly apart from the group. Beside her, an Appaloosa, grey and snowcap spotted, guarding her outside flank. They rest together, one dozing while the other quietly pulls at the grass; a silent watcher, keeping their herdmate safe.

“What was you sayin’ about how you can’t dance?” Arthur asks, raising a reproachful eyebrow.

“Reckon it’s my partner,” Charles murmurs back, voice low with the weight of whiskey, eyelashes heavy like black paint dripping from loaded brush, smudged and stark.

His smirk is a promise, whispered between them. Humming with potential, yet mellow too, with none of the anxiety of the past few weeks. Instead there’s only a warm and satisfying assurance that this isn’t something casual. A ‘distraction’. It is something far greater, and far more meaningful to both of them. They both find comfort and confidence in that.

“Reckon you look...pretty damn spectacular in comparison, you mean?”

Arthur smirks back at him, vaguely aware of Sadie on one side, laughing with Abigail and Mary-Beth, and Sean on the other, serenading Karen as he spins and prances around her, triumphant whenever he is granted a stifled smile in return.

“I mean,” Charles says, eyes only on Arthur. “We make a good team.” His gaze is anchored on him, on the scar above his eyebrow, on the freckles dotted over his nose where another scar sits, the way the firelight glows from his crown to the point of his sternum over which his buttons are fastened, filling in his cheeks, softening the tired dark beneath his eyes. There’s still a long road ahead, but compared to how he looked mere days ago - he is _alive_. Shining.

Wrinkling his nose, Arthur smiles. “Outlawing, robbing, hunting poachers, and now...dancing.”

“Two middle-aged fools together.”

Snickering, Arthur dips beneath their joined hands again, twirling under Charles’ arm, smiling all the more when Charles laughs, drawing him back close to his chest and swaying side to side, turning slow circles as they move. 

“I’ll make it up to you,” Arthur says, still beaming, brighter than any star as they shuffle about the grass, clumsy and carefree. “All of this. We’ll go- Go on that trip we was talkin’ about, remember? Get away from camp for a bit.”

Charles just steps forward, ducking beneath their clasped hands in his own attempted twirl, until he overbalances, stooped too far at the waist, and stumbles, laughing, sideways, Arthur skipping close to stop his fall. Hands around Charles’ waist, Arthur laughs between breaths, half-buried into Charles’ shoulder as he feels reciprocating hands wrap around him, finding their balance again together.

“Maybe we should- Stop before-” Arthur’s voice collapses into laughter.

“Before one of us br-breaks a leg?”

“I mean, with my luck of late-”

More laughter, and somehow between wiping his eyes of mirthful tears, Charles manages to walk Arthur back to the campfire, setting him down in the grass again, a few yards from Javier and John. He sits himself beside him as before, and Arthur’s looking at him when he finally settles, giddy smile still emblazoned across his face like the bright and buttery moon above them.

“I’d like that,” Charles says, clearing his throat after so much laughing, and picks Arthur’s whiskey up from where he’d left it, passing it over with a soft smile. “Going somewhere. Just- Just us.”

“Me too,” Arthur says, and smiles back, holding out the bottle in toast.

Picking up his own half-drunk bottle, Charles clinks the glass together and takes a drink. It doesn’t matter what they’re toasting. Celebrating being alive, or not being dead yet at least. Friends, family, distractions. Love.

All that matters is that Arthur is beside him. Safe and living. Life thrums in him as precious and sacred as in the grass beneath them, the stars above, the eagle and the cottonwoods, the stag amongst the blackjack oaks. Charles will drink to that.

They sit together as the day becomes the next, another lived, another step, and if anyone notices past the alcohol, the singing and the laughter, that their hands are joined between them in the sweet grass, one thumb stroking the other, no one says a word.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew :')
> 
> so i promised you a reference list, [which you can find here!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B_4m8JlIg_b6Ka0BXTTcGr4AgtNk2QzqxVp0zBCLknc/edit?usp=sharing) it turned into an essay on various topics, but i hope it's interesting! i've also explained some of my writing decisions in there, wrt torture, gunshot wounds, and native american cultures, if you're interested.
> 
> this second part turned out to be very self-indulgent - i had so many little recovery moments i wanted to add - and i'm sorry if it seems...too much, but to be honest, this fic and the next one planned are the last moments of happiness we get in the game's timeline for a while (ever), so i felt like we needed a bit of self-indulgence before chapter 3 ends. it's pretty much downhill from here after all. thanks, rockstar.
> 
> anyways, again, thank you so so much to everyone who's still here, everyone who has read this ridiculous thing, everyone who's left a comment (i read all of them and i absolutely mean to reply to all of them, even if it takes me 600 years!). you guys are keeping me going. as always, i'll be working on the next entry asap. in the meantime, come yell at [me on twitter](http://www.twitter.com/sheparrrd) if you want! see you soon cowpokes ♥

**Author's Note:**

> so i did a Heck load of research for this fic!! we'll be here forever if i link all the references and sources, and a lot of them were understandably not exactly coffee table reading (i'm reading about torture for fanfic i swear @ the fbi agent monitoring my internet usage), but i'll write up a little reference page soon and link it at the end!


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